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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 











fll>ot>ern IReabers’ Scries 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 



THE MODERN READERS’ SERIES 


GARLAND 

A Son of the Middle Border 


RIIS . . .The Making of an American 


WHITE . 

A Certain Rich Man 

WATTS . 

Nathan Burke 

NEIHARDT 

The Song of Three Friends 

( preparing ) 

NEIHARDT . 

The Song of Hugh Glass 

WILKINSON. 

Contemporary Poetry 

( preparing ) 





A CERTAIN 
RICH MAN 


BY 

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE 

/ 

EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 

BY 

MILDRED B. FLAGG / 
Author of Community English 



Nefo gfltk 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1923 


All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



Copyright, 1909, 1923, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1909. 
School edition published March, 1923. 



© Cl A696GK3 



NortoootJ J3r£8B 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


MAR -7 1923 


■HvS "V 



TO MY MOTHER 








































A BELATED PREFACE 


To write the preface for a book a dozen years after its 
first appearance is not the ordinary procedure. Yet a 
belated preface has its good points; chief among which is a 
pleasant detachment from the book which the author cannot 
have for his work before it is written, nor indeed just after 
it is completed. He cannot look casually into the molds 
from which it is poured while they are smoking hot from 
immediate use, nor impersonally when it is white hot, ready 
for the book to go in. But let ten or a dozen years pass; 
the smoke has gone from the molds, the kiln is cool and the 
foundry itself abandoned; then one may go back for an 
hour and look, almost dispassionately,- at the machinery 
out of which a book has come, and know something more 
about its whys and wherefores than he knew while it was in 
the furnace. This is especially true if the book is a story 
book, as this one is. For a story always is the dramatiza¬ 
tion of an idea, and an idea often, indeed generally, is the 
product of our environment. We think what we see and 
hear and feel about us. 

A Certain Rich Man is surely the story of the times which 
bore it. It was written during the last years of the first 
decade of the twentieth century — a new and shiny century 
then, hopeful, militant, high-visioned, and gorgeous with 
the confidence of youth. We were greatly excited about the 
arrival of the gasoline motor car, and of the moving picture, 
which were diverting toys in their time. A hot and eager 
troop of Sir Galahads, in politics, led by the exuberance of 
Roosevelt, was charging over the country, prodding every¬ 
where, looking for the Grail. We were millennialists even in 
business, and w T ise old gaffers, somewhat unmoved by the 
clamor of the hour, chuckled at times, or even sighed over 


Vll 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


• • • 
vm 

the enthusiastic discovery of the Golden Rule. The Grail 
hunters let them chuckle and went right on applying the 
Rule. And they were right about it, for they got some good 
things done in applying the Golden Rule to business and 
politics. The era was not so mad as it seems now. 

Now about the wise old gaffers. They were not so much 
to blame. For the most part they were the soldiers of the 
Civil War of the sixties of the previous century. They had 
fought the good fight. But it had left its scars — deep 
spiritual scars. War had left them disillusioned. They had 
small faith in much of the Grail business that was going on 
around them. Anyway they had saved the world once. 
It did not need resaving and they had low opinions of the 
new saviors. Here and there a veteran appeared who 
still had fight in him, but he was in bad standing with his 
comrades. These old soldiers in that first decade of this 
century commonly herded apart from the commonalty of 
men. They had their dreams. They had their own ideals. 
They were gathering like the bluebirds ready to go. For 
they were in their late fifties, middle sixties, and early 
seventies, and the migratory instinct was pulling them 
strongly. Hence perhaps their other-worldliness. They 
seemed a kind of gradually receding chorus, often mocking 
us, sometimes upbraiding us, for laying hands upon the Ark 
of the Covenant which they had made, and in this story the 
old soldiers, Watts McHurdie, General Ward, Colonel 
Culpepper, Lige Bemis, Gabe Carnine, Jake Dolan, and the 
rest, serve chiefly for background; but it was out of the 
background of the Civil War of the sixties that America of 
the early twentieth century immediately sprang. 

It was all so pathetic — that long struggle up out of the 
mire and muck of war, that took all the energies of America 
in those first forty years after the surrender at Appomatox. 
And looking back now at the real story in A Certain Rich 
Man — the story of Molly Culpepper and its heartbreak — 
it seems to me that she must have been the human counter¬ 
part of the spirit of her country; tragic yet cheerful, heart- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


IX 


broken but never hopeless, a brave, strong woman, wise only 
in her heart, and destined for real service in God’s economy. 
This symbolism comes to me now only after the passing of the 
years. 

I must not close these reflections without a word to a new 
generation for John Barclay. Please do not mistake him 
for a villain. He is much more hero than villain. He moved 
with the current of his times. Men thought as he thought, 
acted as he acted, hoped as he hoped in the generation that 
closed with the first decade of this century. But at the last, 
strong new currents were striking into the stream of accepted 
morals, and in the whirlpools of cross current men were 
caught and the struggle was tragedy. So John Barclay, 
caught in the flood, was drawn into the millrace and ground 
in the mill. His fate was no new episode in the world. 
Whenever men’s hearts have quickened to new aspirations, 
this conflict between the old and the new grinds men exceed¬ 
ing fine. Their suffering is the tithe to the miller. We 
must not remember with resentment the men whose lives 
paid this tithe, but with grateful esteem. For listen! 
the flood is coming; soon the mill will begin to grind and 
to-morrow it may be our turn to bleed upon the wheels. 

W. A. White 


Emporia, April, 1922. 

















. 
































































CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Man Who Wrote This Book .xii 

Suggestions to the Reader .xv 

Persons of the Story .xvi 

A CERTAIN RICH MAN.1 

Notes and Comment.435 

Questions on the Text . -.437 

Suggested Topics for Themes.440 


xi 










THE MAN WHO WROTE THIS BOOK 


The author of this book was born in 1868 in Emporia, 
Kansas. Emporia was a little prairie village then of perhaps 
five hundred or a thousand people. They lived in one- and 
two-story board houses, and they traded in brick stores 
along a single street. Beyond one or two streets on either 
side of the main street, the dwellings thinned out and 
the prairie began. On the west it was then all prairie 
from Emporia to the mountains; scarcely half a dozen 
towns lay between Emporia and Denver. When the 
author of the story was a baby, he went with his parents 
to live in what was then a trading station called El Dorado, 
seventy miles southwest of Emporia. It was even bleaker 
than Emporia, and often the Indians from what was then the 
Indian Territory came through El Dorado in great troops, 
going to visit their relatives in the Dakota reservations. 
The cowboys and the plainsmen, hunters, horse thieves, 
gamblers, missionaries, and all sorts of adventurers came 
through the little trading point, and with them came the 
tide of settlers that flooded into the plains after the great 
Civil War of the sixties in the nineteenth century. The 
trading point became a town. The prairie filled with farms. 
Schoolhouses sprang up everywhere. By 1884, when the 
baby from Emporia was a sixteen-year-old boy, El Dorado 
was a lively town of five thousand. The plainsmen, the 
Indians, the gamblers, and the missionaries were gone. They 
were pushed farther west, and finally they disappeared. The 
town of El Dorado was the county seat of twenty-five 
thousand people. It had two daily papers, a flouring mill 
or two, two railroads, three or four banks, a good book store 
or two, and all sorts of sophisticated dry goods, furniture, 
grocery, and clothing stores. College men and women from 


Xll 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


xm 

the East came to the town, which was exactly like thousands 
of others all over the West from the Mississippi to the 
Pacific Ocean, and so grew the civilization of the Middle 
West. 

In that civilization on the prairie the author of A Certain 
Rich Man spent his boyhood and early manhood. He went 
to the El Dorado High School, was graduated in 1884, went 
to the College of Emporia for a year, came back to El Dorado 
and learned the printer’s trade. He went to the State 
University of Kansas at Lawrence, but never was graduated, 
because the editor of the El Dorado Republican lured the 
student from the University by offering him a job managing 
his paper. From that paper he went to the Kansas City 
Journal and a few months later to the Kansas City Star 
as editorial writer, when he was twenty-three years old. 
On the Star he put in his spare time writing fiction stories — 
short stories, none over three thousand words — and in 1895, 
when he bought the Emporia Gazette, he had almost enough 
of these stories written (some of them were printed in the 
Star) to make a book. The book was published in 1896 
and sold well. It was called The Real Issue. Then followed 
other collections of short stories. The Court of Boyville 
was next and a book of political stories called Stratagems and 
Spoils followed that. After Stratagems and Spoils came a 
book of sketches of life in a little country printing office 
called In Our Town. It was the preparation for writing 
A Certain Rich Man, which appeared in 1909. 

A Certain Rich Man was the author’s first novel and he 
was vastly proud of its success. Since writing it he has 
written a book of political essays, The Old Order Changeth, 
a volume of short stories, God’s Puppets, a war book, The 
Martial Adventures of Henry and Me, and another novel, 
In the Heart of a Fool. All these years since 1895 he has 
lived in Emporia, grown since those pioneer days into a 
thriving country town of twelve thousand people with 
twenty-five miles of paved streets, with movie palaces, with 
street cars, -'with thousands of automobiles parked in town 


XIV 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


every day, with two thousand students running up and down 
its streets, with everything that the typical American country 
town has in its environs. He edits a country daily paper, 
takes his part in the town life, and is as happy as the average 
inland American generally is. And that’s all! — absolutely 
all that you should know. 


W. A. W. 


SUGGESTIONS TO THE READER 


This powerful story of love and war and adventure will 
open to you the door of a new world, the world of the past, 
where you can see men and women doing remarkable and 
fascinating things. About them your fancy can play until 
you, too, are frightened by real Indians, wounded in deadly 
battle, loved by a beautiful maiden, beggared by vast wealth, 
or sacrificed for an ideal. No motion picture or recent 
best seller can offer you a more certain refuge from the 
monotony of the textbook than this story of A Certain Rich 
Man. Read it through from beginning to end and use the 
notes at the back of the book only as you need them. 

The questions are intended to lead you to a fuller appre¬ 
ciation of the period which the story represents. They will 
furnish the basis for oral and written composition by suggest¬ 
ing definite subjects for investigation. It is not necessary 
that you be able to answer all of them, for a few answers 
carefully worked out are of much greater value than many 
prepared carelessly. 

The suggestions given for themes may help you to select 
some topic about which you wish to talk or write. Descrip¬ 
tions, stories, explanations, and questions for debate provide 
a variety of material from which to choose a subject. More¬ 
over, these suggestions may help you to arrange your material 
according to some definite plan, to reject irrelevant material, 
to develop your judgment, and to increase your power of 
expression. 

M. B. F. 


XV 


THE PERSONS OF THE STORY 


John Barclay 

Mary Barclay, his mother 

Jane Mason Barclay, his wife 

Jeanette Barclay, his daughter 

Colonel Martin Culpepper, knight-errant 

Ellen Culpepper, a memory 

Molly Culpepper, the heroine 

General Madison Hendricks, a West Point graduate and Mexican 
War veteran 

Robert Hendricks, a fine fellow 

Miss Hendricks, a mouse 

Gabriel Carnine, a money changer 

Adrian P. Brownwell, a gallant, editor of The Banner 

Lycurgus Mason, a woman tamer 

Mrs. Lycurgus Mason, a shrew 

Jacob Dolan, an Irishman and a soldier 

Elijah Westlake Bemis, a villain and political “soft-soaper” 

Hally Bemis, a prodigal 

Oscar Fernald, a tavern keeper 

Nelly Logan, a joiner 

Trixie Lee, an outcast 

General Philemon It. Ward, a patriot 

Lucy Ward, his wife 

Neal Ward, their son 

Watts McHurdie, a poet and harness maker 


BOOK I 












A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


CHAPTER I 

The woods were as the Indians had left them, but the 
boys who were playing there did not realize, until many 
years afterwards, that they had moved in as the Indians 
moved out. Perhaps, if these boys had known that they 
were the first white boys to use the Indians’ playgrounds, 
the realization might have added zest to the make-believe 
of their games; but probably boys between seven and 
fourteen, when they play at all, play with their fancies 
strained, and very likely these little boys, keeping their 
stick-horse livery-stable in a wild-grape arbour in the 
thicket, needed no verisimilitude. The long straight 
hickory switches — which served as horses — were ar¬ 
ranged with their butts on a rotting log, whereon some 
grass was spread for their feed. Their string bridles 
hung loosely over the log. The horsemen swinging 
in the vines above, or in the elm tree near by, were 
preparing a raid on the stables of other boys, either in 
the native lumber town a rifle-shot away or in distant 
parts of the woods. When the youngsters climbed down, 
the}^ straddled their hickory steeds and galloped friskily 
away to the creek and drank; this was part of the rites, 
for tradition in the town of their elders said that who¬ 
ever drank of Sycamore Creek water immediately turned 
horse thief. Having drunk their fill at the ford, they 
waded it and left the stumpy road, plunging into the 
underbrush, snorting and puffing and giggling and fuss¬ 
ing and complaining — the big ones at the little ones 
and the little ones at the big ones — after the manner of 
mankind. 


B 


1 


2 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


When they had gone perhaps a half-mile from the 
ford, one of the little boys, feeling the rag on his sore 
heel slipping and letting the rough woods grass scratch 
his raw flesh, stopped to tie up the rag. He was far in 
the rear of the pack when he stopped, and the boys, not 
heeding his blat, rushed on and left him at the edge of a 
thicket near a deep-rutted road. His cry became a whim¬ 
per and his whimper a sniffle as he worked with the rag ; 
but the little fingers were clumsy, and a heel is a hard 
place to cover, and the sun was hot on his back ; so he 
took the rag in one hand and his bridle in the other, and 
limped on his stick horse into the thick shade of a lone 
oak tree that stood beside the wide dusty road. His sore 
did not bother him, and he sat with his back against the 
tree for a while, flipping the rag and making figures in 
the dust with the pronged tail of his horse. Then his 
hands were still, and as he ran from tune to tune with 
improvised interludes, he droned a song of his prowess. 
Sometimes he sang words and sometimes he sang thoughts. 
He sank farther and farther down and looked up into the 
tree and ceased his song, chirping instead a stuttering fal¬ 
setto trill, not unlike a cricket’s, holding his breath as 
long as he could to draw it out to its finest strand ; and 
thus with his head on his arm and his arm on the tree 
root, he fell asleep. 

The noon sun was on his legs when he awoke, and a 
strange dog was sniffing at him. As he started up, he 
heard the clatter of a horse’s feet in the road, and saw an 
Indian woman trotting toward him on a pony. In an in¬ 
stant he was a-wing with terror, scooting toward the 
thick of the woods. He screamed as he ran, for his 
head was Tull of Indian stories, and he knew that the 
only use Indians had for little boys was to steal them 
and adopt them into the tribe. He heard the brush 
crackling behind him, and he knew that the woman had 
turned off the road to follow him. A hundred yards is a 
long way for a terror-stricken little boy to run through 
tangled underbrush, and when he had come to the high 
bank of the stream, he slipped down among the tree roots 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


3 


and tried to hide. His little heart beat so fast that he 
could not keep from panting, and the sound of breaking 
brush came nearer and then stopped, and in a moment he 
looked up and saw the squaw leaning over the bank, 
holding to the tree above him. She smiled kindly at 
him and said : — 

44 Come on, boy — I won’t hurt you. I as scared of you 
as you are of me.” 

She bent over and took him by the arm and lifted him 
to her. She got on her pony and put him on before her 
and soothed his fright, as they rode slowly through the 
wood to the road, where they came to a great band of 
Indians, all riding ponies. 

It seemed to the boy that he had never .imagined there 
were so many people in the whole world ; there was some 
parley among them, and the band set out on the road again, 
with the squaw in advance. They were but a few yards 
from the forks of the road, and as they came to it she 
said: — 

44 Boy—which way to town?” 

He pointed the way and she turned into it, and the 
band followed. They crossed the ford, climbed the steep 
red clay bank of the creek, and filed up the hill into the 
unpainted group of cabins and shanties cluttered around 
a well that men, in 185T, knew as Sycamore Ridge. The 
Indians filled the dusty area between the two rows of gray 
houses on either side of the street, and the town flocked 
from its ten front doors before half the train had arrived. 
The last door of them all to open was in a slab house, 
nearly half a mile from the street. A washing fluttered 
on the clothes-line, and the woman who came out of the 
door carried a round-bottomed hickory-bark basket, such 
as might hold clothes-pins. Seeing the invasion, she hur¬ 
ried across the prairie, toward the town. She was a tall 
thin woman, not yet thirty, brown and tanned, with a 
strong masculine face, and as she came nearer one could 
see that she had a square firm jaw, and great kind gray 
eyes that lighted her countenance from a serene soul. Her 
sleeves rolled far above her elbows revealed arms used to 


4 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


rough, hard work, and her hands were red from the wash- 
tub. As she came into the street, she saw the little boy 
sitting on the horse in front of the squaw. Walking to 
them quickly, and lifting her arms, as she neared the 
squaw’s pony., the white woman said: — 

“ Why, Johnnie Barclay, where have you been?” 

The boy climbed from the pony, and the two women 
smiled at each other, but exchanged no words. And as 
his feet touched the ground, he became conscious of the 
rag in his hand, of his bleeding heel, of his cramped legs 
being “ asleep ” — all in one instant, anti went limping and 
whining toward home with his mother, while the Indians 
traded in the store and tried to steal from the other houses, 
and in a score of peaceful ways diverted the town’s atten¬ 
tion from the departing figures down the path. 

That was the first adventure that impressed itself upon 
the memory of John Barclay. All his life he remembered 
the covered wagon in which the Barcla 3 7 s crossed the Mis¬ 
sissippi ; but it is only a curious memory of seeing the 
posts of the bed, lying flat beside him in the wagon, and 
of fingering the palm leaves cut in the wood. He was four 
years old then, and as a man he remembered only as a tale 
that is told the fight at Westport Landing, where his father 
was killed for preaching an abolition sermon from the 
wagon tongue. The man remembered nothing of the long 
ride that the child and the mother took with the father's 
body to Lawrence, where they buried it in a free-state 
cemetery. But he always remembered something of their 
westward ride, after the funeral of his father. The boy 
carried a child’s memory of the prairie — probably his 
first sight of the prairie, with the vacant horizon cir¬ 
cling around and around him, and the monotonous rattle 
of the wagon on the level prairie road, for hours keeping 
the same rhythm and fitting the same tune. Then there 
was a mottled memory of the woods — woods with sun¬ 
shine in them, and of a prairie flooded with sunshine on 
which he played, now picking flowers, now playing house 
under the limestone ledges, now, after a rain, following 
little rivers down rocky draws, and finding sunfish and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


5 


silversides in the deeper pools. But always his memory 
was of the sunshine, and the open sky, or the deep wide 
woods all unexplored, save by himself. 

The great road that widened to make the prairie street, 
and wormed over the hill into the sunset, always seemed 
dusty to the boy, and although in after years he followed 
that road, over the hills and far away, when it was rutty 
and full of clods, as a child he recalled it only as a great 
bed of dust, wherein he and other boys played, now bat¬ 
tling with handfuls of dust, and now running races on 
some level stretch of it, and now standing beside the road 
while a passing movers’ wagon delayed their play. The 
movers’ wagon was never absent from the boy’s picture of 
that time and place. Either the canvas-covered wagon 
was coming from the ford of Sycamore Creek, or disap¬ 
pearing over the hill beyond the town, or was passing in 
front of the boys as they stopped their play. Being a boy, 
he could not know, nor would he care if he did know, that 
he was seeing one of God’s miracles—the migration of a 
people, blind but instinctive as that of birds or buffalo, 
from old pastures into new ones. All over the plains in 
those days, on a hundred roads like that which ran through 
Sycamore Ridge, men and women were moving from east 
to west, and, as often has happened since the beginning of 
time, when men have migrated, a great ethical principle 
was stirring in them. The pioneers do not go to the wil¬ 
derness always in lust of land, but sometimes they go to 
satisfy their souls. The spirit of God moves in the hearts 
of men as it moves on the face of the waters. 

Something of this moving spirit was in John Barclay’s 
mother. For often she paused at her work, looking up 
from her wash-tub toward the highway, when a prairie 
schooner sailed by, and lifting her face skyward for an in¬ 
stant, as her lips moved in silence. As a man the boy 
knew she was thinking of her long journey, of the tragedy 
that came of it, and praying for those who passed into the 
West. Then she would bend to her work again ; and the 
washerwoman’s child who took the clothes she washed in 
his little wagon with the cottonwood log wheels, across 


6 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


the commons into the town, was not made to feel an in¬ 
ferior place in the social system until he was in his early 
teens. For all the Sycamore Ridge women worked hard 
in those days. But there were Sundays when the boy 
and his mother walked over the wide prairies together, and 
she told him stories of Haverhill — of the wonderful people 
who lived there, of the great college, of the beautiful 
women and wise men, and best of all of his father, who was 
a student in the college, and they dreamed together— 
mother and child — about how he would board at Uncle 
Union's and work in the store for Uncle Abner — when 
the boy went back to Haverhill to school when he grew 
up. 

On these excursions the mother sometimes tried to in¬ 
terest him in Mr. Beecher’s sermons which she read to 
him, but his eyes followed the bees and the birds and the 
butterflies and the shadows trailing across the hillside; 
so the seed fell on stony ground. One fine fall day they 
went up the ridge far above the town where the court¬ 
house stands now, and there under’ a lone elm tree just 
above a limestone ledge, they spread their lunch, and the 
mother sat on the hillside, almost hidden by the rippling 
prairie grass, reading the first number of the Atlantic 
Monthly , while the boy cleared out a spring that bubbled 
from beneath a rock in the shade, and after running for a 
few feet sank under a great stone and did not appear 
again. As the mother read, the afternoon waned, and 
when she looked up, she was astonished to see John stand¬ 
ing beside the rock, waist deep in a hole, trying to back 
down into it. His face was covered with dirt, and his 
clothes were wet from the falling water of the spring that 
was flowing into the hole he had opened. In a jiffy she 
pulled him out, and looking into the hole, saw by the failing 
sunlight which shone directly into the place that the child 
had uncovered the opening of a cave. But they did not 
explore it, for the mother was afraid, and the two came 
down the hill, the child’s head full of visions of a pirate’s 
treasure, and the mother’s full of the whims of the Auto¬ 
crat of the Breakfast Table. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


7 


The next day school began in Sycamore Ridge, — for 
the school and the church came with the newspaper, Free¬ 
dom's Banner , —and a new world opened to the boy, ancl 
he forgot the cave, and became interested in Webster’s 
blue-backed speller. And thus another grown-up person, 
“ Miss Lucy,” came into his world. For with children, 
men and women generically are of another order of beings. 
Rut Miss Lucy, being John Barclay’s teacher, grew into his 
daily life on an equality with his dog and the Hendricks 
boys, and took a place somewhat lower than his mother in 
his list of saints. For Miss Lucy came from Sangamon 
County, Illinois, and her father had fought the Indians, and 
she told the school as many strange and wonderful things 
about Illinois as John had learned from his mother about 
Haverhill. But his allegiance to the teacher was only lip 
service. For at night when he sat digging the gravel and 
dirt from the holes in the heels of his copper-toed boots, 
that he might wad them with paper to be ready for his 
skates on the morrow, or when he sat by the wide fire¬ 
place oiling the runners with the steel curly-cues curving 
over the toes, or filing a groove in the blades, the boy’s 
greatest joy was with his mother. Sometimes as she ironed 
she told him stories of his father, or when the child was 
sick and nervous, as a special favour, on his promise to take 
the medicine and not ask for a drink, she would bring her 
guitar from under the bed and tune it up and play with a 
curious little mouse-like touch. And on rare occasions 
she would sing to her own shy maidenly accompaniment, 
her voice rising scarcely higher than the wind in the syca¬ 
more at the spring outside. The boy remembered only 
one line of an old song she sometimes tried to sing: 
“ Sleeping, I dream, love, dream, love, of thee,” but what 
the rest of it was, and what it was all about, he never 
knew ; for when she got that far, she always stopped and 
came to the bed and lay beside him, and they both cried, 
though as a child he did not know why. 

So the winter of 1857 wore away at Sycamore Ridge, 
an I with the coming of the spring of ’58, when the town 
was formally incorporated, even into the boy world there 


8 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


came the murmurs of strife and alarms. The games the 
boys played were war games. They had battles in the 
woods, between the free-state and the pro-slavery men, 
and once — twice — three times there marched by on the 
road real soldiers, and it was no unusual thing to see a 
dragoon dismount at the town well and water his horse. 
The big boys in school affected spurs, and Miss Lucy 
brought to school with her one morning a long bundle, 
which, when it was unwrapped, disclosed the sword of her 
father, Captain Barnes, presented to him by his admiring 
soldiers at the close of the “Black Hawk War.” John 
traded for a tin life and learned to play “Jaybird ” upon 
it, though he preferred the jew’s-harp, and had a more varied 
repertory with it. Was it an era of music, or is childhood 
the period of music ? Perhaps this land of ours was 
younger than it is now and sang more lustily, if not with 
great precision; for to the man who harks back over the 
years, those were days of song. All the world seemed 
singing — men in their stores and shops, women at their 
work, and children in their schools. And a freckled, bare¬ 
footed little boy with sunburned curly hair, in home-made 
clothes, and with brown bare legs showing through the rips 
in his trousers, used to sit alone in the woods breathing 
his soul into a mouth-organ— a priceless treasure for which 
he had traded two raccoons, an owl, and a prairie dog. But 
he mastered the mouth-organ, — it was called a French 
harp in those days, — and before he had put on his first 
collar, Watts McHurdie had taught the boy to play the 
accordion. The great heavy bellows was half as large as 
he was, but the little chap would sit in McHurdie’s har¬ 
ness shop of a summer afternoon and swing the instrument 
up and down as the melody swelled or died, and sway his 
oody with the time and the tune, as Watts McHurdie, who 
owned the accordion, swayed and gyrated when he played. 
Mrs. Barclay, hearing her son, smiled and shook her head 
and knew him for a Thatcher; “No Barclay,” she said, 
“ever could carry a tune.” So the mother brought out 
from the bottom of the trunk her yellow-covered book, 
“Winner’s Instructor on the Guitar,” and taught the child 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


9 


_ « 

what she could of notes. Thus music found its way out 
of the boy’s soul. 

One day in the summer of 1860, as he and his fellows 
were tiling down the crooked dusty path that led from the 
swimming hole through the dry woods to the main road, 
they came upon a group of horsemen scanning the dry ford 
of the Sycamore. That was the first time that John Bar¬ 
clay met the famous Captain Lee. He was a great hulk of 
a man who, John thought, looked like a pirate. The boys 
led the men and their horses up the dry limestone bed of 
the stream to the swimming hole — a deep pool in the 
creek. The coming of the soldiers made a stir in the town. 
For they were not “regulars”; they were known as the 
Red Legs, but called themselves “The Army of the Bor¬ 
der.” Under Captain J. Lord Lee — whose life after¬ 
wards touched Barclay’s sometimes—“The Army of the 
Border,” being about forty in number, came to Sycamore 
Ridge that night, and greatly to the scandal of the decent 
village, there appeared with the men two women in short 
skirts and red leggins, who were introduced at Schnitzler’s 
saloon as Happy Hally and Lady Lee. “ The Army of 
the Border,” under J. Lord and Lady Lee, — as they were 
known, — proceeded to get bawling drunk, whereupon 
they introduced to the town the song which for the 
moment was the national hymn of Kansas : — 

“ Am I a soldier of the boss, 

A follower of Jim Lane? 

Then should I fear to steal a liosS, 

Or blush to ride the same.” 

As the night deepened and Henry Schnitzler’s supply 
of liquor seemed exhaustless, the Army of the Border went 
from song to war and wandered about banging doors and 
demanding to know if any white-livered Missourian in the 
town was man enough to come out and fight. At half¬ 
past one the Army of the Border had either gone back to 
camp, or propped itself up against the sides of the build¬ 
ings in peaceful sleep, when the screech of the brakes on 
the wheels of the stage was heard half a mile away as it 


10 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


lumbered down the steep bank of the Sycamore, and then 
the town woke up. As the stage rolled down Main Street, 
the male portion of Sycamore Ridge lined up before the 
Thayer House to see who would get out and to learn the 
news from the gathering storm in the world outside. As 
the crowd stood there, and while the driver was climbing 
from his box, little John Barclay, white-faced, clad in his 
night drawers, came flying into the crowd from behind a 
building. 

“ Mother — ” he gasped, “ mother — says — come — 
mother says some one come quick — there’s a man there 
— trying to break in I ” And finding that he had made 
himself understood, the boy darted back across the com¬ 
mon toward home. The little white figure kept ahead 
of the men, and when they arrived, they found Mrs. Bar¬ 
clay standing in the door of her house, with a lantern in 
one hand and a carbine in the crook of her arm. In the 
dark, somewhere over toward the highway, but in the 
direction of the river, the sound of a man running over 
the ploughed ground might be heard as he stumbled and 
grunted and panted in fear. She shook her head reas¬ 
suringly as the men from the town came into the radius 
of the light from her lantern, and as they stepped on the 
hard clean-swept earth of her doorway, she said, smiling: 

“He won’t come back. I’m sorry I bothered you. 
Only —I was frightened a little at first — when I sent 
Johnnie out of the back door.” She paused a moment, 
and answered some one’s question about the man, and 
went on, “ He was just drunk. He meant no harm. It 
was Lige Bemis — ” 

“Oh, yes,” said Watts McHurdie, “you know — the 
old gang that used to be here before the town started. 
He’s with the Red Legs now.” 

“Well,” continued Mrs. Barclay, “he said he wanted to 
come over and visit the sycamore tree by the spring.” 

The crowd knew Lige and laughed and turned away. 
The men trudged slowly back to the cluster of lights that 
marked the town, and the woman closed her door, and she 
and the child went to bed. Instead of sleeping, they 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


11 


talked over their adventure. He sat up in bed, big-eyed 
with excitement, while his mother told him that the 
drunken visitor was Lige Bemis, who had come to revisit 
a cave, a horse thief’s cave, he had said, back of the big 
rock that seemed to have slipped down from the ledge 
behind the house, right by the spring. She told the boy 
that Bemis had said that the cave contained a room 
wherein they used to keep their stolen horses, and that he 
tried to move the great slab door of stone and, being drunk, 
could not do so. 

When the men of Sycamore Ridge who left the stage 
without waiting to see what human seed it would shuck 
out arrived at Main Street, the stage was in the barn, the 
driver was eating his supper, and the passenger was in bed 
at the Thayer House. But his name was on the dog-eared 
hotel register, and it gave the town something to talk 
about as Martin Culpepper was distributing the mail. 
For the name on the book was Philemon R. Ward, and 
the town after his name, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
Every man and woman and most of the children in Syca¬ 
more Ridge knew who Philemon Ward was. He had 
been driven out of Georgia in '58 for editing an abolition 
newspaper; he had been mobbed in Ohio for delivering 
abolition lectures; he had been led out of Missouri with 
a rope around his neck, and a reward was on his head in 
a half-dozen Southern states for inciting slaves to rebel¬ 
lion. His picture had been in Harper s Weekly as a Gen¬ 
eral Passenger Agent of the Underground Railway. 
Naturally to Sycamore Ridge, where more than one night 
the town had sat up all night waiting for the stage to 
bring the New York Tribune , Philemon R. Ward was a 
hero, and his presence in the town was an event. When 
the little Barclay boy heard it at the store that morning 
before sunrise, he ran down the path toward home to tell 
his mother and had to go back to do the errand on which 
he was sent. By sunrise every one in town had tho 
news; men were shaken out of their morning naps to 
near, u Philemon Ward’s in town — wake up, man; did 
you hear what I say? Philemon Ward came to town last 


12 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


night on the stage.” And before the last man was awake, 
the town was startled by the clatter of horses’ hoofs on 
the gravel road over the hill south of town, and Gabriel 
Carnine and Lycurgus Mason of Minneola came dashing 
into the street and yelling, “ The Missourians are coming, 
the Missourians are coming ! ” 

The little boy, who had just turned into Main Street for 
the second time, remembered all his life how the news that 
the Minneola men brought, thrilled Sycamore Ridge. It 
seemed to the boy but an instant till the town was in the 
street, and then he and a group of boys were running to 
the swimming bole to call the Army of the Border. The 
horse weeds scratched his face as he plunged through the 
timber cross-lots with his message. He was the first boy 
to reach the camp. What they did or what he did, he never 
remembered. He has heard men say many times that he 
whispered his message, grabbed a carbine, and came tear¬ 
ing through the brush back to the town. 

All that is important to know of the battle of Sycamore 
Ridge is that Philemon Ward, called out of bed with the 
town to fight that summer morning, took command before 
he had dressed, and when the town was threatened with a 
charge from a second division of the enemy, Bemis and 
Captain Lee of the Red Legs, Watts McHurdie, Madison 
Hendricks, Oscar Fernald, and Gabriel Carnine, under the 
command of Philemon Ward, ran to the top of the high 
bank of the Sycamore, and there held a deep cut made for 
the stage road, —held it as a pass against a half-hundred 
horsemen, floundering under the bank, in the underbrush 
below, who dared not file up the pass. 

The little boy standing at the window of his mother’s 
house saw this. But all the firing in the town, all the form¬ 
ing and charging and skirmishing that was done that hot 
August day in ’60, either he did not see, or if he saw it, 
the memory faded under the great terror that gripped his 
soul when he saw his mother in danger. Ward in his 
undershirt was standing by a tree near the stage road 
above the bank. The firing in the creek bed had stopped. 
His back was toward the town, and then, out of some 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


13 


place dim in the child’s mind — from the troop southwest 
of town perhaps — came a charge of galloping horsemen, 
riding down on Ward. The others with him had found 
cover, and he, seeing the enemy before him and behind him, 
pistol in hand, alone charged into the advancing horsemen. 
It was all confused in the child’s mind, though the his¬ 
tories say that the Sycamore Ridge people did not know 
Ward was in danger, and that when he fell they did not 
understand who had fallen. But the boy — John Barclay— 
saw him fall, and his mother knew who had fallen, and the 
wife of the Westport martyr groaned in anguish as she 
saw Freedom’s champion writhing in the dust of the road 
like a dying snake, after the troop passed over him. And 
even when he was a man, the boy could remember the woe 
in her face, as she stooped to kiss her child, and then 
huddling down to avoid the bullets, ran across the field to 
the wounded man, with dust in his mouth, twitching in 
the highway. Bullets were spitting in the dust about 
her as the boy saw his mother roll the bleeding man over, 
pick him up, get him on her back with his feet trailing on 
the earth beside her, and then rising to her full height, 
stagger under her limp burden back to the house. When 
she came in the door, her face and shoulders were covered 
with blood and her skirt ripped with ^ bullet. 

That is all of the battle that John Baiclay ever remem¬ 
bered. After that it seemed to end, though the histories 
say that it lasted all the long dajq and that the fire of the 
invaders was so heavy that no one from the Ridge dared 
venture to the Barclay home. The boy saw his mother 
lay the unconscious man on the floor, while she opened 
the back door, and without saying a word, stepped to the 
spring, which was hidden from the road. She put her 
knee, her broad chest, and her strong red hand to the rock 
and shoved until her back bowed and the cords stood out 
on her neck ; then slowly the rock moved till she could see 
inside the cave, could put her leg in, could squirm her 
body in. The morning light flooded in after her, and in 
the instant that she stood there she saw dimly a great 
room, through which the spring trickled. There were hay 


14 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


inside, and candles and saddles ; in another minute she haa 
the wounded man in the cave and was washing the dirt 
from him. A bullet had ploughed its way along his scalp, 
his body was pierced through the shoulder, and his leg was 
broken by a horse’s hoof. She did what she could while 
the shooting went on outside, and then slipped out, tugged 
at the great rock again until it fell back in its place, and 
knowing that Philemon Ward was safe from the Missou¬ 
rians if they should win the day, she came into the house. 
Then as the mocking clouds of the summer drouth rolled 
up at night, and belched forth their thunder in a tempest 
of wind, the besiegers passed as a dream in the night. 
And in the morning they were not. 


CHAPTER II 


And so on the night of the battle of Sycamore Ridge 
John Barclay closed the door of his childhood and became 
a boy. He did not remember how Ward’s wounds were 
dressed, nor how the town made a hero of the man; but he 
did remember Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and 
the Hendricks boys tramping through the cave that night 
with torches, and he was the hero of that occasion because 
he was the smallest boy there and they put him up through 
the crack in the head of the cave, and he saw the stars 
under the elm tree far above the town, where he and his 
mother had spent a Sunday afternoon three years before. 
He called to the men below and told them where he was, 
and slipped down through the hole again with an elm 
sprout in his hand to prove that he had been under the 
elm tree at the spring. But he remembered nothing of 
the night — how the men picketed the town; how he sat up 
with them along with the other boys; how the women, 
under his mother's direction and Miss Lucy’s, cared for 
the wounded man, who lapsed into delirium as the night 
wore on, and gibbered of liberty and freedom as another 
man would go over his accounts in his dreams. 

His mother and Miss Lucy took turns nursing Ward 
night after night during the hot dry summer. As the 
sick man grew better, many men came to the house, and 
great plans were afloat. Philemon Ward, sitting up in 
bed waiting for his leg to heal, talked much of the cave 
as a refuge for fugitive slaves. There was some kind of a 
military organization; all the men in town were enlisted, 
and Ward was their captain; drums were rattling and men 
were drilling; the dust clouds rose as they marched across 
the drouth-blighted fields. One night they marched up 
to the Barclay home, and Ward with a crutch under his 
arm, and with Mrs. Barclay and Miss Lucy beside him, 

15 


16 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


stood in the door and made a speech to the men. And 
then there were songs. Watts McHurdie threw back his 
head and sang “Scots wha ha’ wi’ Wallace bled,” follow¬ 
ing it with some words of his own denouncing slavery and 
calling down curses upon the slaveholders; so withal it 
was a martial occasion, and the boy’s heart swelled with 
patriotic pride. But for a vague feeling that Miss Lucy 
was neglecting him for her patient, John would have be¬ 
gun making a hero of Philemon R. Ward. As it was, the 
boy merely tolerated the man and silently suspected him 
of intentions and designs. 

But when school opened, Philemon Ward left Sycamore 
Ridge and John Barclay made an important discovery. It 
was that Ellen Culpepper had eyes. In Sycamore Ridge 
with its three hundred souls, only fifteen of them were 
children, and five of them were ten years old, and John 
had played with those five nearly all his life. But at ten 
sometimes the scales drop from one’s eyes, and a ribbon 
or a bead or a pair of new red striped yarn stockings or 
any other of the embellishments which nature teaches little 
girls to wear casts a sheen over all the world for a boy. 
The magic bundle that charmed John Barclay was a 
scarlet dress, “ made over,” that came in an “ aid box ” 
from the Culpeppers in Virginia. And when the other 
children in Miss Lucy’s school made fun of John and his 
amour , the boy fought his way through it all — where 
fighting was the better part of valour — and made horse¬ 
hair chains for Ellen and cut lockets for her out of coffee 
beans, and with a red-hot poker made a ring for her from 
a rubber button as a return for the smile he got at the sly 
twist he gave her hair as he passed her desk on his way to 
the spelling class. As for Miss Lucy, who saw herself 
displaced, she wrote to Philemon Ward, and told him of 
her jilting, and railed at the fickleness and frailty of the 
- sex. 

And by that token an envelope in Ward’s handwriting 
came to Miss Lucy every week, and Postmaster Martin 
Culpepper and Mrs. Martin Culpepper and all Sycamore 
Ridge knew it. And loyal Southerner though he was, 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


17 


Martin Culpepper’s interest in the affair between Ward and 
Miss Lucy was greater than his indignation over the fact 
that Ward had carried his campaign even into Virginia; 
nothing would have tempted him to disclose to his political 
friends at home the postmarks of Ward’s letters. That 
was the year of the great drouth of ’60, remembered all 
over the plains. And as the winter deepened and the 
people of Sycamore Ridge were without crops, and with¬ 
out money to buy food, they bundled up Martin Culpepper 
and sent him back to Ohio seeking aid. He was a hand¬ 
some figure the day he took the stage in his high hat and 
his ruffled shirt and broad coat tails, a straight lean figure 
of a man in his early thirties, with fine black eyes and a 
shocky head of hair, and when he pictured the sufferings 
of the Kansas pioneers to the people of the East, the state 
was flooded with beans and flour, and sheeted in white 
muslin. For Martin Culpepper was an orator, and though 
he is in his grave now, the picture he painted of bleeding 
Kansas nearly fifty years ago still hangs in many an old 
man’s memory. And after all, it was only a picture. For 
they were all young out here then, and through all the 
drouth and the hardship that followed — and the hardship 
was real — there was always the gayety of youth. The 
dances on Deer Creek and at Minneola did not stop for the 
drouth, and many’s the night that Mrs. Mason, the tall 
raw-boned wife of Lycurgus, wrapped little Jane in a 
quilt and came over to the Ridge from Minneola to take 
part in some social affair. And while Martin Culpepper 
was telling of the anguish of the famine, Watts McITurdie 
and his accordion and Ezra Lane’s fiddle were agitating 
the heels of the populace. And even those pioneers who 
were moved to come into the wilderness by a great pur¬ 
pose— and they were moved so—to come into the new 
territory and make it free, nevertheless capered and romped 
through the drouth of ’60 in the cast-off garments of their 
kinsmen and were happy ; for there were buffalo meat and 
beans for the needy, the aid room had flour, and God gave 
them youth. 

Not drouth, nor famine, nor suffering, nor zeal of a 


18 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


great purpose can burn out the sparkle of youth in the 
heart. Only time can do that, and so John Barclay re¬ 
membered the famous drouth of ’60, not by his mother’s 
tears, which came as she bent over his little clothes, before 
the aid box came from Haverhill, not by the long days of 
waiting for the rain that never came, not even by the sun 
that lapped up the swimming hole before fall, and left no 
river to freeze for their winter’s skating, not even by his 
mother’s anguish when she had to go to the aid store for 
flour and beans, though that must have been a sorry day 
for a Thatcher ; but he remembers the great drouth by 
Ellen Culpepper’s party, where they had a frosted cake and 
played kissing games, and— well, fifty years is along time 
for two brown eyes to shine in the heart of a boy and a 
man. It is strange that they should glow there, and all 
memory of the runaway slaves who were sheltered in the 
cave by the sycamore tree should fade, and be only as a 
tale that is told. Yet, so memory served the boy, and he 
knew only at second hand how his mother gave her 
widow’s mite to the cause for which she had crossed the 
prairies as of old her “ fathers crossed the sea.” 

Before the rain came in the spring of ’61 Martin Cul¬ 
pepper came back from the East an orator of established 
reputation. The town was proud of him, and he addressed 
the multitude on various occasions and wept many tears over 
the sad state of the country. For in the nation, as well 
as in Sycamore Ridge, great things were stirring. Watts 
McIIurdie filled Freedom s Banner with incendiary verse, 
always giving the name of the tune at the beginning of 
each contribution, by which it might be sung, and the way 
he chinked Slavery’s chains and made love to Freedom was 
highly disconcerting ; but the town liked it. 

In April Philemon R. Ward came back to Sycamore 
Ridge, and there was a great gathering to hear his speech. 
Ward’s soul was aflame with anger. There were no Greek 
gods and Roman deities in what Ward said, as there were 
in Martin Culpepper's addresses. Ward used no figures 
of speech and exercised no rhetorical charms ; but he talked 
with passion in his voice and the frenzy of a cause in his 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


19 


eyes. Martin Culpepper was in the crowd, and as Ward 
lashed the South, every heart turned in interrogation to 
Culpepper. They knew what his education had been. 
They understood his sentiments ; and yet because he was 
one of them, because he had endured with them and suf¬ 
fered with them and ministered to them, the town set him 
apart from its hatred. And Martin Culpepper was sensi¬ 
tive enough to feel this. It came over him with a wave of 
joy, and as Ward talked, Culpepper expanded. Ward closed 
in a low tone, and his face was white with pent-up zeal as 
he asked some one to pray. There was a silence, and then a 
woman’s voice, trembling and passionate, arose, and Syca¬ 
more Ridge knew that Mrs. Barclay, the widow of the 
Westport martyr, was giving sound to a voice that had 
long been still. It was a simple halting prayer, and not 
all those in the room heard it clearly. The words were 
not always fitly chosen; bat as the prayer neared its close, —. 
and it was a short prayer at the most, — there came 
strength and courage into the voice as it asked for grace for 
“ the brother among us who has shared our sufferings and 
lightened our burdens, and who has cleaved to us as a brother, 
but whose heart is drawn away from us by ties of blood 
and kinship and then the voice sank lower and lower as 
though in shame at its boldness, and hushed in a tremu¬ 
lous Amen. 

No one spoke for a moment, and as Sycamore Ridge 
looked up from the floor, its eyes turned instinctively tow¬ 
ard Martin Culpepper. He felt the question that was in 
the hearts about him, and slowly, to the wonder of all, he 
rose. He had a beautiful deep purring voice, and when he 
opened his eyes, they seemed to look into every pair of eyes 
in the throng. There were tears on his face and in his 
voice as he spoke. “ Entreat me not to leave thee, or to 
return from following after thee : for whither thougoest, I 
will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people 
shall be my people, and thy God my God : where thou 
diest, I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord 
do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee 
and me.” And then he sank to his chair and hid his 


*20 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


face, and for a moment a hundred wet-eyed men were 
still. 

Though John Barclay was at the meeting, he remembered 
only his mother’s prayer,but in his heart there was always a 
picture of a little boy trying to walk home with a little girl, 
and when he came up with her she darted ahead or dropped 
back. At the Culpepper gate she stood waiting fully a 
minute for him to catch her, and when lie came up to her, 
she laughed, “ Huh, Mr. Smarty, you didn’t, did you ? ” and 
ran up the walk, scooted into the house, and slammed the 
door. But he understood and went leaping down the hill 
toward home with happiness tingling in his very finger-tips. 
He seemed to be flying rather than walking, and his toes 
touched the dirt path so lightly that he rounded the cor¬ 
ner and ran plump into Miss Lucy and Philemon Ward 
standing at the gate. And what he saw surprised him so 
that he let out a great “ haw-haw-haw ” and ran, trying to 
escape his shame and fear at his behaviour. But the next 
morning Miss Lucy smiled so sweetly at him as he came 
into the schoolroom, that he knew he was forgiven, and 
that thrill was lost by the thump of joy that startled his 
heart when he saw a bunch of dog-tooth violets in his ink 
bottle, and in his geography found a candy heart with a 
motto on it so fervent that he did not eat it for three long 
abstemious days of sheer devotion, in which there were 
eyes and eyes and eyes from the little girl m the scarlet 
gown. 

It is strange that the boy did not remember how Syca¬ 
more Ridge took the call to arms for the war between the 
states. All he remembered of the great event in our his¬ 
tory as it touched the town was that one day he heard there 
was going to be a war. And then everything seemed to 
change. A dread came over the people. It fell upon the 
school, where every child had a father who was going away. 

And it was because Madison Hendricks, the first man 
to leave for the war, was father of Bob and Elmer Hen¬ 
dricks that John s first associations of the great Civil War 
go back to the big black-bearded man. For Madison 
Hendricks, who was a graduate of West Point, and a vet* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


21 


eran of the Mexican War, was called to Washington in 
May, and his boys acquired a prestige that was not ac¬ 
corded to them by the mere fact that their father was 
president of the town company, and was accounted the first 
citizen of the town. Madison Hendricks, who owned the 
land on which the town was built, Madison Hendricks, 
scholar and gentleman, veteran of the Mexican War, first 
mayor of Sycamore Ridge upon its incorporation,—his 
sons had no standing. But Madison Hendricks, formally 
summoned to go to Washington to put down the rebellion, 
and leaving on the stage with appropriate ceremonies,— 
there was a man who could bequeath to his posterity in 
the boy world something of his consequence. 

So in the pall that came upon the school in Sycamore 
Ridge that spring of ’61, Bob and Elmer Hendricks were 
heroes, and their sister—who was their only guardian in 
their father’s absence—had to put them in her dresses 
and send them to bed, and punish them in all the shameful 
ways that she knew to take what she called “ the tuck out 
of them.” And the boy of all the boys who gave the Hen¬ 
dricks boys most homage was little Johnnie Barclay. 
There was no dread in his hero-worship. He had no 
father to s:o to the war. But the other children and all 
the women were under a great cloud of foreboding, and for 
them the time was one of tension and hoping against hope 
that the war would soon pass. 

How the years gild our retrospect. It was in 1903 that 
Martin Culpepper, a man in his seventies, collected and 
published “The Complete Poetical and Philosophical 
Works cf Watts McHurdie, together with Notes and a 
Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper.” 
One of the earlier chapters, which tells of the enlistment 
of the volunteer soldiers for the Civil War in ’61, de¬ 
votes some space to the recruiting and enlistment in Syca¬ 
more Ridge. The chapter bears the heading “ The Large 
White Plumes,” and in his “introductory remarks” the 
biographer says, “ To him who looks back to those golden 
days of heroic deeds only the lines of Keats will paint the 
picture in his soul: — 


/ 


22 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ <Lo, T must tell a tale of chivalry. 

For large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes/ w 

And so the “ large white plumes ” blinded his eyes to 
the fear and the dread that were in the hearts of the people, 
and he tells his readers nothing of the sadness that men 
felt who put in crops knowing that their wives must culti¬ 
vate and harvest them. He sees only the glory of it; for 
we read : 44 Hail to the spirit of mighty Mars. When he 
strode through our peaceful village, he awoke many a war 
song in our breasts. As for our hero, Mars, the war god 
forged iron reeds for his lute, and he breathed into it the 
spirit of the age, and all the valour, all the chivalry of a 
golden day came pouring out of his impassioned reeds.” 
Such is the magic of those large white plumes on Martin 
Culpepper’s memory. Although John Barclay in that 
latter day bought a thousand copies of the Biography and 
sent them to public libraries all over the world, he smiled 
as he read that paragraph referring to Watts McHurdie’s 
accordion as the 44 impassioned reeds.” When he read it* 
John Barclay, grown to a man of fifty-three, sitting at a 
great mahogany table, with a tablet of white paper on a 
green blotting pad before him, and a gorgeous rose rising 
from a tall graceful green vase on the shining table, looked 
out over a brown wilderness of roofs and chimneys across 
a broad river into the hills that were green afar off, and 
there, rising out of yesterday, lie saw, not the bent little 
old man in the harness shop with steel-rimmed spectacles 
and greasy cap, whom you may see to-day; but instead, 
the boy in John Barclay’s soul looked through his eyes, 
and he saw another Watts McHurdie, — a dapper little 
fellow under a wide slouch hat, with a rolling Byronic 
collar, and fancy yellow waistcoat of the period, in ex¬ 
ceedingly tight trousers. And then, flash ! the picture 
changed, and Barclay saw Watts McHurdie under his 
mushroom hat; Martin Culpepper in his long-tailed coat; 
Philemon Ward, tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, slim, and 
sturdy; skinny, nervous Lycurgus Mason and husky Ga¬ 
briel Carnine from Minneola; Jake Dolan in his shirt sleeves, 
without adornment of any kind, except the gold horsesho 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


23 


pinned on his shirt bosom; Daniel Frye, the pride of an 
admiring family, in his best home-made clothes; Henry 
Schnitzler, Oscar Fernald, and nearly a hundred other 
men, to the boy’s eyes so familiar then, now forgotten, and 
all their faces blurred in the crowd that stood about the 
recruiting officer by the town pump in Sycamore Ridge that 
summer day of ’61. A score or so of men had passed 
muster. The line on the post at the wooden awning in 
front of Schnitzler’s saloon was marked at five feet six. 
All had stood by it with their heads above the line. It 
was Watts McHurdie’s turn. He wore high-heeled boots 
for the occasion, but strut as he would, his roached hair 
would not touch the stick that came over the line. “Stretch 
your neck — ye bantam,” laughed Jake Dolan. “Walk 
turkey fashion, Watts,” cried Henry Schnitzler, rushing 
up behind Watts and grabbing his waistband. The crowd 
roared. Watts looked imploringly at the recruiting officer 
and blubbered in wrath: “Yes, damn you — yes; that’s 
right. Of course; you won’t let me die for my bleedin’ 
country because I ain’t nine feet tall.” And the little 
man turned away trying to choke his tears and raging at 
his failure. And because the recruiting officer was con¬ 
siderable of a man, Watts McHurdie’s name was written 
in the muster roll, and he went out. 

Many days must have passed between the time when 
the men were mustered in and the day they went away to 
the war. But to the man who saw those times through the 
memory of the boy in blue jeans forever playing bugle- 
calls upon his fife, it was all one day. For that crowd 
dissolved, and another picture appeared upon the sensitized 
plate of his memory. There is a crowd in the post-office 
— mostly men who are going away to war. The stage 
has come in, and a stranger, better dressed than the men 
of S} 7 camore Ridge, is behind the letter-boxes of the post- 
office. The boy is watching his box ; for it is the day 
when the Springfield Republican is due. Gradually the 
hum in front of the boxes quiets, and two loud voices have 
risen behind the screen. Then out walks great Martin 
Culpepper, white of face, with pent-up fury. His left 


24 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


hand is clutched like a talon in the shoulder of the stranger, 
whom Martin is holding before him. “ Gentlemen, your 
attention,” demands Culpepper. The stranger swallows 
his Adam’s apple as if to speak ; Martin turns to him with, 
“ Don’t you say that word again, sir, or I’ll wring your 
neck.” Then he proceeds : — 

“ Gentlemen, this busybody has come all the way from 
Washington here to tell me I’m a thief. I wrote to his 
damn Yankee government that I was needing the money 
last winter to go East on the aid committee and would 
replace it, and now that I’m going out to-morrow to die for 
his damn Yankee government, he has the impertinence to 
come in here and say I stole that money. Now what I 
want to ask you, gentlemen, is this : Do I go out to-morrow 
to die on the field of glory for my country, or does this here 
little contemptible whippersnapper take me off to rot in 
some Yankee jail ? I leave it to you, gentlemen. Settle 
it for yourselves.” And with that Culpepper throws the 
man into the crowd and walks behind the screen in solemn 
state. 

The boy never knew how it was settled. But Martin 
Culpepper went to “the field of glory,” and all the boy 
knew of the incident is here recorded. However, in the 
Biography of Watts McHurdie above-mentioned and afore¬ 
said occur these words, in the same chapter—the one 
entitled “ The Large White Plumes “ Let memory with 
gentle hand cover with her black curtain of soft oblivion all 
that was painful on that glorious day. Let us not recall 
the bickerings and the strifes, let the grass watered by 
Lethe’s sweet spring creep over the scars in the bright pros¬ 
pect which lies under our loving gaze. Let us hold in our 
heart the tears in beauty’s eyes ; the smile that curls her 
crimson lips, and the hope that burns upon her brow. Let 
us fondle the sacred memory of every warm hand clasp of 
comrade and take to the silent grave the ever green garland 
of love that adorned our hearts that day. For the sordid 
thorns that pierced our bleeding hearts — what are they 
but ashes to-day, blown on the winds of yesterday ? ” 

What indeed, Martin Culpepper — what indeed, smiled 



A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


23 


John Barclay as he reached for the rose on his broad ma> 
hogany desk across forty long years, and looking through 
a wide window, saw on the blank wall of a great hulk of a 
building half a mile away, the fine strong figure of a man 
with black shaggy hair on his young leonine head rise and 
wave his handkerchief to a woman with tears running down 
her face and anguish in her eyes, standing in a swarm of 
children. What indeed are sordid thorns when the “ large 
white plumes are dancing ” — what indeed? 

That was a busy night in Sycamore Ridge — the night 
before the men left for war in the summer of ’61. And 
the busiest man in all the town was Philemon R. Ward. 
Every man in the town was going, and most of the men 
were going who lived in the county -— an area as large as 
a New England state, and yet when they were all gathered 
in Main Street, there were less than fivescore of them. 
They had agreed to elect Ward captain, Martin Culpepper 
first lieutenant, Jake Dolan second lieutenant. It was one 
of the diversions of the occasion to call out “ Hello, Cap,” 
when Ward hustled by a loitering crowd. But his pride 
was in his work, and before sundown he had it done. The 
Yankee in him gave him industry and method and fore¬ 
sight. At sunset the last of the twenty teams and wagons 
he had ordered came rattling down the hill west of town, 
driven by Gabriel Carnine of Minneola, with Mrs. 
Lycurgus Mason sitting like a war goddess on the back 
seat holding Lycurgus, a spoil of battle, while he held 
their daughter on his lap, withal a martial family party. 
Mrs. Barclay and Miss Lucy went to the aid store-room 
and worked the long night through, getting breakfast for 
the men. Mary Murphy and Nellie Logan came from the 
Thayer House to the aid room when the hotel dishes were 
washed, and helped with the work. And while they were 
there the Culpeppers walked in, returning from a neigh¬ 
bourly visit to Miss Hendricks ; John Barclay in an apron, 
stirring a boiling pot of dried apples, turned his back or 
the eyes that charmed him, but when the women sent him 
for a bucket of water, he shook the handle at Ellen Cul¬ 
pepper and beckoned her with a finger, and they slipped 


26 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


out into the moonlight together. She had hold of the 
handle of the bucket with him, and they pulled and hauled 
and laughed as boy and girl will laugh so long as the 
world turns round. The street was deserted, and only the 
bar of light that fell across the sidewalk from Schnitzler’s 
saloon indicated the presence of human beings in the little 
low buildings that pent in the highway. The boy and 
the girl stood at the pump, and the boy stuck a foot in the 
horse trough. He made a wet silhouette of it on the stone 
beneath him, and reached for the handle of the pump. 
Then he said, “I got somepin I won’t tell.” 

“ Three little niggers in a peanut shell,” replied the girl. 

“ All right, Miss Cuteness. All right for you; I was 
going to tell you somepin, but I won’t now.” He gave 
the pump-handle a pull. It was limp and did not respond 
with water. “Ellen—’’the boy repeated as he worked 
the handle, “I got somepin to tell you. Honest I have.” 

“ I don’t care, Mr. Smarty,” the girl replied ; she made 
a motion as if to walk away, but did not. The boy 
noticed it and said, “Yes, sir — it’s somepin you’d like to 
know.” The girl did not turn round. The boy, who had 
been working with the wheezy pump, was holding the 
handle up, and water was gurgling down the well. And 
before she could answer he said, “Say, Ellen — don’t 
be mad; honest I got somepin.” 

“ Who’s it about ? ” she asked over her shoulder. 

“Me.” 

“ That’s not much — who else ? ” 

“Elmer Hendricks! ” 

“Who else?” The girl was halfway turned around 
when she spoke. 

“Bob—Bob Hendricks,” replied the boy. 

“Aw — Bob Hendricks—” returned the girl, in con¬ 
tempt. Then she faced the boy and said, “ What is it ? ” 

“Come here ’n’ I’ll tell you.” 

“I’ll come this far.” The girl took two steps. 

“ I got to whisper it, and you can’t hear.” 

“ Well, ’tain’t much.” The girl dangled one bare foot 
hesitatingly. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


27 


“I’ll come halfway,” she added. 

The boy made a mark in the dnst of the road a few 
feet from him with his toe, and said, “Come to there.” 

The girl shook her head, and spoke. “ Tell me part—. 
’n’ I’ll see if it’s good.” 

“ Me and Elmer an’ Bob are goin’ to run away ! ” The 
girl stepped to the toe mark and cried, “ What ? ” 

“Yes, sir — in the mornin’.” He caught hold of the 
girl’s arm awkwardly and swung her around to the op¬ 
posite side of the pump-handle, and put her hands on it 
and began to pump. She pumped with him as he puffed 
between the strokes, “Urn’ huh — we’re going to hide 
in the provision wagons, under some saddles they is there 
and go — to — war ! ” The water was pouring into the 
bucket by the time he had got this out. Their hands 
touched on the pump-handle. It was the boy who drew 
his hand away. The girl gasped:— 

“Why, John Barclay, — it ain’t no such thing — does 
your ma know it ? ” 

He told her that no one knew it but her, and they 
pumped in silence until the bucket was full, and walking 
back carrying the bucket between them, he told her an¬ 
other secret: that Watts McHurdie had asked John to 
get his guitar after midnight, and play an accompaniment 
to the accordion, and that Watts and Ward and Jake 
Dolan and Gabriel Carnine were going out serenading. 
Further he told her that Watts was going to serenade 
Nellie Logan at the Thayer House, and that Gabriel 
Carnine was going to serenade Mary Murphy, and that 
Philemon Ward was going to serenade Miss Lucy, and 
that he, John Barclay, had suggested that it would be line 
to serenade Mrs. Culpepper, because she was such a nice 
woman, and they agreed that if he would bring his guitar, 
they would ! 

When the boy and girl returned to the store, Ward and 
Miss Lucy went to the Barclay home for the guitar. 
When they came back, Mrs. Barclay noted a pink welt 
on one of Ward’s fingers where his cameo ring had been, 
and she observed that from time to time Miss Lucy kept 


28 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


feeling of her hair as if to smooth it. It was long after 
midnight before the girls from the hotel went homo, and 
Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay lay on the counter in the 
' store, trying to sleep. They awoke with the sound of 
music in their ears, and Miss Lucy said, “It’s Captain 
Ward — and the other boys, serenading us.” They 
heard the high tenor voice of Watts McHurdie and the 
strong clear voice of Ward rising above the accordion 
and guitar : — 

“ For her voice is on the breeze, 

Her spirit comes at will, 

At midnight on the seas 

Her bright smile haunts me still.” 

And underneath these high voices was the gruff bass voice 
of Gabriel Carnine and the baritone of Jake Dolan. And 
when Mrs. Barclay heard the piping treble of her son, 
and the tinkle of his guitar, her eyes filled with tears of 
pride. 

The serenaders waked the chickens, and the crowing 
roosters roused Mrs. Barclay, and in the hurry of the 
hour she forgot to look for her son. As “the gray dawn 
was breaking,” a hundred men came into the room, and 
found the smoking breakfast on the table. It was a 
good breakfast as breakfasts go when men are hungry. 
But they sat in silence that morning. The song was all 
out of them ; the spring of youth was crushed under the 
weight of great events. And as they rose — they who 
had been so merry the day before, and had joked of the 
things the soldier fears, they were all but mute, and left 
their breakfasts scarcely tasted. 

The women remember this, — the telltale sign of the 
untouched breakfast, — and their memory is better than 
that of Martin Culpepper, who wrote in that plumy chap¬ 
ter of the Biography, before mentioned : — 

“ The soldiers left their homes that beautiful August 
morning as the sun was kissing the tips of the sycamore 
that gave the magnificent little city its name. They had 
partaken abundantly of a bountiful breakfast, and as they 
satisfied their inner man from a table groaning with good 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


29 


things prepared by the fair hands of the gentler sex, the 
gallant men rose with song and cheer, and went on their 
happy way where duty and honour called theln. ,, 

But the women who scraped the plates that morning 
knew the truth. One wonders how much of history 
would be thrown out as worthless, like Martin Culpep¬ 
per’s fine writing, if the women who scraped the plates 
might testify. For those “large white plumes” do not 
dance in women's eyes! 

After breakfast the men tumbled into the wagons, and 
as one wagon after another rattled out of Eernald’s 
feed lot and came down the street, the men waved their 
hats and the women waved their aprons, and a great cloud 
of dust rose on the highway, and as the wagons ducked 
down the bank to the river, only the tall figure of Martin 
Culpepper, waving his handkerchief, rose above the cloud. 
At the end of the line was a provision wagon, and on it 
rode Philemon Ward — Yankee in his greatest moment, 
scorning the heroic place in the van, and looking after 
the substantials. In the feed lot, just as the reins were 
in his hands, Ward saw Elmer Hendricks’ foot peeping 
from under a saddle. Ward dragged the boy out, spank¬ 
ing him as he came over the end gate, and noted the 
sheepish smile on his face. Ten days later, as Ward, 
marching in the infantry, was going up a hill through the 
timber at the battle of Wilson’s Creek, that same boy 
rode by with the cavalry, and seeing Ward, waved a car¬ 
bine and smiled as he charged the brow of the hill. That 
night, going back under the stars, Ward stumbled over a 
body, and stooping, saw the smile still on the boy’s face, 
and the carbine clutched in his hand. But for the hole 
through the boyish brow, the eyes might still have been 
laughing. 


CHAPTER III 


A few years ago, in the room of the great mahogany 
table, with its clean blotting pad, its writing tablet, and 
its superb rose rising from a green vase in the midst of the 
shining unlittered expanse, there was a plain, heavy ma¬ 
hogany wainscoting reaching chin-high to the average man. 
A few soft-toned pictures adorned the dull gray walls 
above the wainscoting, and directly over a massive desk 
that never was seen open hung a framed letter. The 
letter was written on blue-lined paper in red pokeberry 
ink. At the top of the letter was the advertisement of a 
hotel, done in quaint, old-fashioned, fancy script with 
many curly-cues and printers’ ornaments. The adver¬ 
tisement set forth that the Thayer House at Sycamore 
Ridge was “ First class in every particular,” and that “Es¬ 
pecial attention was paid to transient custom.” On aline 
in the right-hand corner the reader was notified that the 
tavern was founded by the Emigrant Aid Society, and 
balancing this line, in the left-hand corner, were these 
words : “ The only livery-stable west of Lawrence.” John 
Barclay’s eyes have read it a thousand times, and yet he 
always smiled when he scanned the letter that followed 
the advertisement. The letter read : —- 

“ Dear Ma I am going to war. Doan crye. Iff father 
was here he wood go; so why should not I. I will be 
very caerfull not to get hurt & stay by Cap Ward all the 
time. So godby yours truly J. Barclay Jr.” 

It was five hours after the soldiers had gone when Mrs. 
Barclay came home from her work in the aid room, and the 
first thing that attracted her attention was her son’s letter, 
lying folded on the table. When she read it, she ran with 
the open letter across the common to the town. It was a 
woman’s town that morning, — not a man was left in it, —- 
for Ezra Lane, the only old man living in the Ridge, had 

80 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


31 


left Freedom’s Banner to shift for itself while he rode to 
Leavenworth with the soldiers to bring back the teams; and 
when Mrs. Barclay came into the street, she found some 
small stir there, made by Miss Hendricks — the only mother 
the Hendricks boys remembered — who was inquiring for 
her lost boys. Mrs. Barclay displayed her note, and in a 
moment the whole population of Sycamore Ridge, with 
hands under its aprons, was standing in front of the post- 
office. Then Ellen Culpepper found her tongue, and Mrs. 
Barclay began to look for a horse. Elmer Hendricks’ pony 
in the pasture was the only horse Ward had left within 
twenty miles. When Ellen Culpepper and her little sister 
Molly came back from the pasture and announced that 
Elmer’s pony was gone also, the women surmised that he 
had taken it with him, for they could not know that after 
he was spanked from the provision wagon, he had slipped 
out to the pasture and ridden by a circuitous route to the 
main road. 

It was Captain Ward, dismounting from his driver’s 
seat on the provision wagon at noon, who discovered two 
boys: a little boy eleven years old in a dead faint, and a 
bigger boy panting with the heat. They threw cold 
spring water on John Barclay’s face, and finally his eyes 
opened, and he grinned as he whispered, “ Hullo, Captain,"’ 
to the man bending over him. The man held water to 
the boy’s lips, and he sipped a little and swam out into the 
blackness again, and then the man reappeared and the 
boy tried to smile and whispered, “Aw — I’m all right.” 
They saw he was coming out of his faint, and one by one 
the crowd dropped away from him ; but Ward stayed, and 
when the child could speak, he replied to Ward’s question, 
“’Cause I wanted to.” And then again when the ques¬ 
tion was repeated, the boy said, “ I tell you ’cause I wanted 
to.” He shook his head feebly and grinned again and 
tried to rise, but the man gently held him down, and kept 
bathing his temples with cold water from the spring be¬ 
side them. Finally, when the man seemed a little harsh in 
his questions, the boy’s eyes brimmed and he said: “ Whur’d 
my pa be if he was alive to-day? I just guess I got as 


32 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


much right here as you have.” He made a funny little 
picture lying on the lush grass by the spring in the woods; 
his browned face, washed clean on the forehead and tem¬ 
ples, showed almost white under the dirt. There were 
tear-stained rings about the eyes, and his pink shirt and 
blue trousers were grimy with dust, and the red clay of 
the Sycamore still was on the sides of his dust-brown bare 
feet. Around a big toe was a rag which showed a woman’s 
tying — neat and firm but red with clay. 

Ward left, and Bob Hendricks came and stood over the 
prostrate boy. Bob was carrying a bucket of water to the 
cook as a peace offering. 

“ What did they do? ” asked the boy on the ground. 

“ Just shook me — and then said father’d tend to me for 
this.” The boys exchanged comments on the situation 
without words, and then Bob said as he drew the dripping 
bucket from the spring, “ We’re going clear on to Leaven¬ 
worth, and they say then we’ve got to come back with 
Ezra Lane and the teams.” 

The boy on the ground raised himself by rolling over 
and catching hold of a sapling. He panted a moment, and 
“I’ll bet y’ I don’t.” The other boy went away with a 
weak “ Me neither,” thrown over his shoulder. 

During that long afternoon, and all the next day and 
the next, the boys ran from wagon to wagon, climbing 
over end gates, wriggling among the men, running with 
the horses through the shady woods, paddling in the fords, 
'and only refusing to move when the men got out of the 
wagons and walked up the long clay hills that rise above the 
Kaw River. At night they camped by the prairie streams, 
and the men sang and wondered what they were doing at 
home, and Philemon Ward took John Barclay out into the 
silence of the woods and made him say his prayers. And 
Ward would look toward the west and say, “ Well, Johnnie, 
— there’s home,” and once they stood in an open place in 
the timber, and Ward gazed at a bright star sinking in the 
west, and said, “ I guess that’s about over Sycamore 
Ridge.” They went on, and the boy, looking back to see 
why the man had stopped, caught him throwing a kiss at 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


33 


the star. And they could not know, as they walked back 
together through the woods abashed, that two women sit¬ 
ting before a cabin door under a sycamore tree were look¬ 
ing at an eastern star, and one threw kisses at it unashamed 
while the other wept. And on other nights, many other 
nights, the two, Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay, sat looking 
at their star while the terror in their hearts made their 
lips mute. God makes men brave who stand where bullets 
fly, yet always they can run away. But God seems to give 
no alternative to women at home who have to wait and 
dread. 

Forty years later John Barclay took from a box in a 
safety vault back of his office in the city a newspaper. It 
was the Sycamore Ridge Banner , yellow and creased and 
pungent with age. “ This,” he said to Senator Myton, 
spreading the wrinkled sheet out on the mahogany table, 
“this is my enlistment paper.” He smiled as he read 
aloud : — 

“At noon of our first day out we came across two stow¬ 
aways. Hendricks, aged twelve, son of our well-known 
and popular Mayor, and J. Barclay, aged eleven, son of 
Mrs. M. Barclay, who, owing to the suddenness of the de¬ 
parture of our troops for the seat of war in Missouri, and 
certain business delays made necessary in ye editor’s re¬ 
turn, were slipped out with our company rather than left 
in the rough and uncertain city of Leavenworth. They 
are called by the boys of 4 C’ company respectively ‘the 
little sergeant and the little corporal, Good Luck boys.’ ” 

A little farther down the column was this paragraph : 

“ Aug. 2nd we went into camp on Sugar Creek, and some 
sport was had by the men who went in bathing, taking the 
horses with them.” 

“ Ever go in swimming with the horses, Senator ? ” asked 
Barclay. The senator shook his head doubtfully. 

“ Well — you haven’t. For if you had you’d remember 
it,” answered Barclay, and a hundred naked young men 
and two skinny, bony boys splashed and yelled and ducked 
and wrestled and locked their strong wet arms about the 
necks of the plunging horses and dived under them, and 


34 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


rolled across them and played with them like young satyrs 
in the cool water under the overhanging elms with the 
stars twinkling in the shining mahogany as Barclay folded 
the paper and put it away. He thrummed the polished 
surface a moment and looked back into the past to see 
Philemon Ward straight, lean, and glistening like a god 
standing on a horse ready to dive, and as he huddled, 
crouched for the leap, Barclay said, “Well, come on, Sen¬ 
ator, we must go to lunch now.” 

It was late in the afternoon of their third day’s journey 
that the men from Sycamore Ridge rode in close order, 
singing, through the streets of Leavenworth. Watts Mc- 
Hurdie was playing his accordion, and the people turned 
to look at the uncouth crowd in civilian’s clothes that 
went bellowing “ O My Darling Nellie Gray,” across the 
town and out to the Fort. Ezra Lane promised to call 
at the Fort for the two boys and with drivers for the 
teams early the next morning—but to Sycamore Ridge, 
Leavenworth in those days was the great city with its 
pitfalls, and when Ezra Lane, grizzled though he was, 
came to a realizing sense of his responsibilities, the next 
day was gone and the third was waning. When he 
went to the Fort, he found the Sycamore Ridge men had 
been hurried into Missouri to meet General Price, who 
was threatening Springfield, and no word had been left 
for him about the boys. As he left the gate at the 
Fort, a troop of cavalry rode by gaily,, and a boy, a big 
overgrown fourteen-year-old boy in a blue uniform, passed 
and waved his hand at the befuddled old man, and cried, 
u Good-by, Mr. Lane, — tell ’em you saw me.” He knew 
the boy was from Sycamore Ridge, but he knew also 
that he was not one of the boys who had come with the 
soldiers; and being an old man, far removed from the boy 
world, lie could not place the child in his blue uniform, 
so he drove away puzzled. 

The afternoon the men from Sycamore Ridge came to 
Leavenworth they were hurriedly examined again, signed 
the muster rolls, and were sent away without uniforms 
all in twenty-four hours. But not before they had found 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


35 


time to have their pictures taken in borrowed regimentals. 
For twenty years after the war the daguerreotypes of the 
soldiers taken at Leavenworth that day were the proudest 
adornments of the centre-tables of Sycamore Ridge, and 
even now on Lincoln Avenue, in a little white cottage 
with green blinds, that sits in a broad smooth lawn with 
elm trees on it, stands an easel. On the easel is a picture 
—-an enlarged crayon drawing of a straight, handsome 
young fellow in a captain’s uniform. One hand is in his 
coat, and the other at his hip. His head is thrown back 
with a fierce determination into the photographer’s iron 
rest and all together the picture is marked with the wrin¬ 
kled front of war. For over one corner of the easel hangs 
a sword with an ivory handle, and upon it is an inscrip¬ 
tion proclaiming the fact that the sword was presented 
to Captain Philemon R. Ward by his company for 
gallant conduct on the field of battle on the night of 
August 4, 1861. Above the easel in the corner hangs 
another picture — that of a sweet-faced old man of seventy, 
beaming rather benignly over his white lawn necktie. The 
forty-five years that have passed between the two faces 
have trimmed the hair away from the temples and the brow, 
have softened the mouth, and have put patience into the 
eyes — the patience of a great faith often tried but never 
broken. The five young women of the household know 
that the crayon portrait on the bamboo easel is highly im¬ 
proper as a parlour ornament —for do they not teach school, 
and do they not take all the educational journals and the 
crafty magazines of art ? But the hand that put it there 
was proud of its handiwork, and she who hung the sword 
upon the easel is gone away, so the. girls smile at the fierce 
young boyish face in the picture as they pass it, and throw 
a kiss at the face above it, and the easel is not moved. 

And the man, — the tall old man with a slight stoop in 
his shoulders, the old man who wears the alpaca coat and 
the white lawn tie seen in the upper picture, — sometimes 
he wanders into the stately front room with a finger in a 
census bulletin as a problem in his head creases his brow 
— and the sight of the sword always makes him smile, and 


36 A CERTAIN RICH MAN 

sometimes the smile is a chuckle that stirs the cockles of 
his heart. 

For his mind goes back to that summer night of August 
4, 1861, and he sees himself riding on a horse with a little 
boy behind with his arms in the soldier’s belt. It is dusk, 
and “ C ” Company on foot is filing down a Missouri hill. 
It is a muddy road, and the men are tired and dirty. There 
is no singing now. A man driving an ox team has turned 
out of the road to let the soldiers pass. Some one in the 
line asks the man, “ Where’s Price ? ” 

“ Over the hill yonder,” replies the man, pointing with 
his hickory whip-stock. The word buzzes up and down 
the line. The captain on his horse with the bov clutch¬ 
ing at his belt does not hear it. But the line lags and 
finally halts. The men have been only two days under 
military discipline. That day last week Phil Ward — 
who was he, anyway? Ilenry Schnitzler and Oscar Fer- 
nald could have bought him and sold him twice over. 
So the line halted. Then the captain halted. Then he 
called Second Lieutenant Dolan and asked to know what 
was the matter. “ They say they are going to camp,” 
responded Dolan, touching his cap. Captain Ward’s face 
flushed. He told Dolan to give the order to march. 
There were shouts and laughter, and Gabriel Carnine 
cried, “ Say, Phil, this here Missourian we passed says old 
General Price is over that hill.” The boys laughed again, 
and Ward saw that trouble was before him. The men 
stood waiting while he controlled his rage before he spoke. 
Dolan said under his breath from the ground beside the 
horse, “ They’re awful tired, Cap, and they don’t want to 
tackle Price’s army all by their lonelies.” Some one in 
the company called out, “ We’ve voted on this thing, Cap. 
Don’t the majority rule in this country ? ” 

A smile twitched at Ward’s mouth and the boy in him 
pricked a twinkle in his eyes, for he was only twenty-six, 
and he laughed — threw his head back and then leaned 
over and slapped the horse’s neck and finally straight¬ 
ened up and said, “ Gentlemen, I bow to the will of the 
people.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


37 


And so it happened that when they drew their first 
month’s pay, Martin Culpepper and Jake Dolan sug¬ 
gested to the company that they buy Ward a sword to 
commemorate the victory of the people. And Martin 
Culpepper made a great presentation speech in which he 
said that to the infantry, cavalry, and artillery arms of 
military service, 44 C” Company had added the “vox populi.” 
But the night after the presentation Oscar Fernald and 
Watts McHurdie crawled under the captain’s tent and 
stole the sword and pawned it for beer, and there was 
a sound of revelry by night. 

When they found the great camp near Springfield, it 
seemed to John Barclay that all the soldiers in the world 
were gathered. It is difficult for a boy under a dozen years 
to remember things consecutively; because boys do not do 
things consecutively. They flit around like butterflies, and 
so the picture that they make of events jumps from scene 
to scene. One film on a roll of John’s memory showed a 
hot August day in the camp of 44 C ” Company ; the men 
are hurrying about the place. The tents are down ; the 
boys—John and Bob — are kicking around the vacant 
camp looking for trophies. But there the film broke 
and did not record the fact that Captain Ward put Bob 
and John on a commissary wagon that stood in a side 
street as the soldiers moved out. John remembered 
looking into a street filled with marching soldiers. First 
the regulars and the artillery came swinging down the 
street. At their head the boy saw General Lyon, the 
commanding officer, and around him was a body-guard 
whose plumed hats, with the left brim pinned up, caught 
the boys’ eyes. The regulars marched by silently. It 
was part of their day’s work ; but following them came a 
detachment of Germans singing 44 Marchen Rote,” and 
then the battery of six guns and then the Kansans. 
Small wonder Captain Gordon Granger told Colonel 
Mitchel that the Kansas soldiers were only an armed 
mob. They filed out of Springfield, some in rags and 
some in tags and some in velvet gowns. They carried 
guns ; but they looked like delegates to a convention, 


38 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and as the boys saw their own company, they waved 
their hands, but they were almost ashamed of the shabby 
clothes of the men from Sycamore Ridge ; for a boy 
always notices clothes on others. When the Germans 
stopped singing “ Marclien Rote,” the boys heard Watts 
McIIurdie’s high tenor voice start up “The Dutch Com- 
panee,” and the crowd that was lining the street cheered 
and cheered. A Missouri regiment followed and more 
regulars, and then a battery of four guns passed, and then 
came more Kansans still going to that everlasting con¬ 
vention. And a band came roaring by, — with its crash¬ 
ing brass and rumbling drums, — and then after the band 
had turned the corner, came Iowa in gray blouses and 
such other garments as the clothes-lines of the country 
afforded. They were singing as they passed — a song 
the boy had never heard, being all about the “ happy land 
of Canaan.” And before the sun had set again, after that 
night, hundreds of those who sang of the happy land were 
there. In the rear were the ambulances and the ammuni¬ 
tion and the hospital vans, and the wagon which held the 
boys wheeled into the line. After they had passed, the 
streets were clogged with carts and drays and wagons of 
all sorts, for the citizens were moving to places of safety. 

As a man, the boy’s memory did not tell him how the 
boys fared, but he does remember that it was dark in the 
timber where they camped that night, and that they slipped 
away into the woods to lie down together. The chirping 
of the birds at dawn wakened them, and as John sat up 
rubbing his eyes, he heard a rifle’s crack. They were at 
the edge of a field, and half a mile from him, troops were 
marching by columns across a clearing. The rifle-shot 
was followed by another, and another, and then by a half- 
dozen. “ Wake up, Bob — wake up — they’s a battle,” he 
cried, and the tAvo boys stumbled to their feet. The shots 
were far in front of the marching soldiers, and the boys 
could not make out what the firing meant. The line 
formed and ran up the hill, and the boys saw the morning 
sun flashing on the guns of the enemy. The battery roared, 
and the boys were filled with terror. They ran through 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


39 


the woods like dogs until they came to the soldiers from 
Sycamore Ridge. The boys crawled on their bellies to 
their friends, and lay with their faces all but buried in 
the ground. The men were lying at the edge of the tim¬ 
ber talking, and Watts McHurdie was on his back. 

“What’s the matter with you, Watts?” asked. Oscar 
Fernald. 

“Os,” replied Watts, “I got a presentiment I’m goin’ 
to be shot in the rear. It will kill me to be shot in the 
back, and I’ve got a notion that’s how I am goin’ to die.” 

The line laughed. Captain Ward, who was sitting a 
few paces in the rear of the men, went over to Watts, and 
scuffled the man over with his foot. A bullet went through 
Ward’s hat before he got back to his place. The men were 
sticking up ramrods and betting on the number of minutes 
they would last. No ramrod stood more than ten minutes. 
Martin Culpepper threw up his hat five times before a bul¬ 
let hit it; but he went bareheaded the rest of the day, 
and John Barclay, in sheer fear, began to dig a hole under 
him. After he had been on his belly for an hour, Henry 
Schnitzler got tired and rose. The men begged him to lie 
down. But his only reply when they told him he was a fool 
was, “Veil, vot of it?” And when they said he would be 
shot, he answered again, “Yell, vot of it?” And when 
Jake Dolan cried, “You pot-gutted Dutchman, sit down 
or there’ll be a sauer-kraut shower in hell pretty quick,” 
Henry shook his fat sides a moment and laughed, “Yell, 
vot of dot — altzo! ” For an hour, that seemed ten, he 
moved back and forth on the line, firing and joking, and 
then the spell broke and a bullet took part of his jaw. As 
he dropped to his position, with the blood gushing from 
his face, his eyes blazed, and he spat out, “ By hell-tam, 
now I yos mad,” and he fought the day out and died that 
night. But as he sank to his place when the bullet hit 
him, Watts McHurdie saw Schnitzler stagger, and through 
the smoke, knew that he was wounded. Watts rushed to 
Schnitzler and bent over him, when a ball hit Watts and 
went ripping through the fleshy part of his hip. “ Shot in 
the back — damn it, shot in the back I ” he screamed, as 


40 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


he jumped into the air. “ What did I tell you, boys^ 
I’m shot in the back.” And he crawled bleeding to the 
rear. 

All the long forenoon the camp of the enemy continued 
to belch out men. The battery mowed them down, and 
once the Kansans were ordered to charge the hill, and the 
boys were left alone. It was there that the two were 
separated. John saw men sink in awful silence, and the 
blood ooze from their heads. He saw men cramp in agony 
and choke with blood, and he saw Martin Culpepper, per¬ 
haps with the large white plumes still dancing in his eyes, 
dash out of the line and pick up a Union banner that Sigel’s 
men had lost, and that the enemy was flaunting just before 
the artillery mowed the gray line down. He heard the 
hoarse men cheer Martin, and as the tall swart figure came 
running back waving the flag, the boy prayed to his father’s 
God to save the man. 

When the battle lulled, the boy found himself parted 
from “ C ” Company, and fled back through the woods to the 
rear. There he came upon a smell that was familiar. He 
had known it in the slaughter-house at home. It was the 
smell of fresh blood, and with it came the sickening drone 
of flies. In an instant he stood under a tree where men 
were working smeared with blood. He stumbled over a 
little pile of dismembered legs and hands. A man with a 
bloody knife was bending over a human form stretched on 
a bloody and, it seemed to the boy, a greasy table. An¬ 
other was helping the big man. They were cutting the 
bullet out of Watts McIIurdie, who was lying white and 
unconscious and with flies crawling over him, half naked 
and blood-smeared, on the table. The boy screamed, and 
the man turned his head and snarled through his clenched 
teeth that held the knife, “Get out cf here — no—go get 
me a bucket of water from the creek.” Some one handed 
the boy a bucket, and he ran where he was told to go, with 
the awful sight burned on his brain, with the sickening 
smell in his nose, and with the drone of flies in his ears. 
When he came back the firing had begun again. The 
surgeon was saying, “ Well, that’s all that’s waiting—now 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


41 


Pm going for a minute.” He grabbed a gun standing by 
the table and ran toward the front; he did not take olf 
his blood-splotched apron, and the boy fled from the place 
in terror. In a few moments the firing ceased; but the 
boy ran on, hunting for a hiding-place. He saw a troop 
of Alabamians plunge over a log in a charge, and roll 
in an awful, writhing, screaming pile of dying men and 
horses, and in the heap he saw the terror-stricken face of 
a youth, who was shrieking for help; John carried that 
fear-distorted face in his memory for years, until long 
afterwards it appeared in Sycamore Ridge. 

But that day John fled from the death-trap almost mad 
with fear. Rushing farther into the woods, he came upon 
General Lyon and his staff. The plumed hats of the body¬ 
guard told the boy that the sandy-haired man before him 
was in command, though the man’s face was bloody from 
a wound in his head, and though his clothes were stained 
with blood and he was hatless. He sat upright on his 
horse, and as the boy turned, he heard the voices of Cap¬ 
tain Ward and his soldiers, begging to be sent into the 
fight. It was a clamour fierce and piteous, and the gen¬ 
eral had turned his head to the Kansans, when something 
at the left startled him. There was no firing, and a column 
of soldiers was approaching. Doubt paralyzed the group 
around Lyon for a moment. The men wore gray blouses 
strangely like those the Iowans wore. The men might be 
Sigel’s men, coming back from their artillery duel. The 
general plainly was puzzled. He rode out from the body¬ 
guard a few paces. The boy was staring at him, when the 
body-guard with their gay plumed hats came up, and he 
saw wrath flash into the general’s face as he recognized 
the enemy. “Shoot them — shoot them — ” he shouted. 
But the gray line vomited its smoke first, and the boy felt 
his foot afire. The general dropped from his horse, and 
as the boy looked down, he saw a red blot coming out on 
his instep. In the same instant he saw Captain Ward rush 
to the falling general, and saw the body-guard gather 
about him, and then the blackness came over the child and 
he fell. He did not see them bear General Lyon’s body 


42 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


into the brush, nor hear Ward moan his sorrow. But 
when Ward returned from the thicket, he saw the child 
lying limp on the grass. 

As Ward ran toward the hospital van carrying the limp 
little body, he could see that a ball had pierced the boy’s 
foot. Also he saw the men in retreat who had shot Lyon, 
and all over the field the firing had ceased. As he hurried 
through the underbrush, Ward ran into Bob Hendricks 
hiding in the thicket. Ward took the child’s hand and 
he began to sob : “ I saw Elmer go up that hill, Captain ; 
I saw him go up with the horses and lie ain’t come back.” 
But Ward did not understand him, and hurried the little 
fellow along with John to the surgeon. 

Then Ward left them, and when John Barclay opened 
his eyes, Bob Hendricks was sitting beside him. A great 
lint bandage was about John’s foot, and they were in a 
wagon jolting over a rutty road. He did not speak for a 
long time, and then he asked, “ Did we whip ’em?” 

And Bob nodded and said, “ Cap says so ! ” 

The children clasped hands and talked of many things 
that passed from the boy’s mind. But his mind recorded 
that the next day in the hospital Martin Culpepper said, 
“ Bob can’t come to-day, Johnnie ; you know he’s tendin’ 
Elmer’s funeral.” The boy must have opened his eyes, for 
the man said, “ Why, Johnnie, I thought you knew; yes; 
they found him dead that night — right under the reb — 
under the enemies’ guns on the brink of the hill.” 

The child’s eyes filled with tears, but he did not cry. 
His emotion was spent. The two sat together for a time, 
and the little boy said, “ Why didn’t you go, Mr. Cul¬ 
pepper?” And the man replied: “Me? Oh — why — 
Oh, yes, I got a little scratch here in my leg, and they 
won’t let me out of here. There’s Watts over there in 
the next cot; he got a little scratch too — didn’t you, 
Watts?” Watts and the boy smiled at each other, but 
John did not see Bob again for years. Miss Hendricks 
came and took him to their father’s people in Ohio. 

One day some one came in the hospital where John and 
Watts and Martin Culpepper were lying, and began to 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


43 


call out mail for the men, and the third name the corporal 
called was “ Captain Martin Culpepper”; and when they 
brought him a long official envelope with General Fr4- 
mont’s name on it, Martin Culpepper held it in his hands, 
looked at the inscription, read the word “ captain ” again 
and again, and could not speak for choked joy. And tears 
so dimmed his eyes that he could not see the “ large white 
plumes ” of chivalry, but the men in the beds cheered as 
they heard the words the corporal read. 

With such music as that in his ears, and with his soul 
stirred by the events about him, Watts McHurdie, lying 
in the hospital, wrote the song that made him famous. 
They know in Sycamore Ridge that Watts is not much of 
a poet, that his rhymes are sometimes bad and his metre 
worse. But once his heart took fire and burned for a day 
sheer white, and in that day he wrote words that a nation 
sang, and now all the world is singing. And they are 
proud of him, and when people come to Sycamore Ridge 
on pilgrimages to see the author of the song, men do not 
smile in wonder; they show the visitors his shop, and 
point out the bowed little man bending over his bench, 
stretching his arms out as he sews, and they point him 
out with pride. Not even John Barclay with all his mill¬ 
ions, or Bob Hendricks, who once refused a place in the 
President’s cabinet, are more esteemed in Sycamore Ridge 
than the little harness maker who set the world to singing. 

And curiously enough, John Barclay was with Watts 
McHurdie when he wrote the song. They brought him 
an accordion one day while he was getting well, and the 
two sat together. Watts droned along and shut his eyes 
and mumbled some words, and then burst out with the 
chorus. Over and over he sang it and exclaimed be¬ 
tween breaths : “Say — ain’t that fine? I just made it 
up.” He was exalted with his performance, and some 
women came loitering down the corridor where the 
wounded man and the boy were lying. The visitors gazed 
compassionately at them — little Watts not much larger 
than the boy. A woman asked, “ And where were you 
wounded, son?” looking at Watts with his accordiom 


44 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


His face flashed up at the thought of his shame, and ha 
could not keep back the tears that always betrayed him 
when he was deeply moved. u Ten — ten miles from 
Springfield, madam, ten miles from Springfield.” And 
to hide his embarrassment he began sawing at his ac¬ 
cordion, chanting his famous song. But being only a 
little boy, John Barclay tittered. 

A few days after the battle Captain Ward wrote to 
Miss Lucy telling her that some soldiers slightly wounded 
would go home on a furlough to Lawrence, and that they 
would Like John with them and put him on the stage at 
Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge. Then Ward’s letter con¬ 
tinued : “ It is all so horrible — this curse of war ; some¬ 
times I think it is worse than the curse of slavery. There 
is no ‘pomp and circumstance of glorious war.’ Men 
died screaming in agony, or dumb with fear. They were 
covered with dirt, and when they were dead they merged 
into the landscape like inanimate tilings. What vital 
difference is there between a living man and a dead man, 
that one stands out in a scene big and obtrusive, and the 
other begins to fade into the earth as soon as death 
touches the body ? The horror of death is upon me, and 
I cannot shake it off. It is a fearful thing to see a hu¬ 
man soul pass ‘in any shape, in any mood.’ And I have 
seen so many deaths — we lost one man out of every 
three — that I am all unnerved. I saw General Lyon 
die — the only abolitionist in the regular army, they say. 
He died like a soldier — but not as the soldiers die in 
pictures. He sank off his horse so limp, and so like an 
animal with its death wound, and gasped so weakly, ‘ I’m 
killed — take care of my body,’ that Avlien we covered his 
face and bore him away, we could not realize we were 
carrying a man’s body. And now, my dear, if I should 
go as these men go, I have neither kith nor kin to mourn 
me — only you, and you must not mourn, for I shall be 
near you always and always, without sign or token, and 
when you feel my presence near, know that it is real, 
and not a seeming. For the great force of life that moves 
events in this world has but one symbol, but one vital 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


45 


manifestation, and that is love, and when a soul is 
touched with that, it is immortal.” 

But Martin Culpepper, with his dancing plumes, saw 
things in another light. Perhaps we always see things 
in another light when forty years have passed over them. 
But in his chapter 44 The Shrill Trump,” in the Biog¬ 
raphy, he writes : 44 4 O you mortal engines, whose rude 
throats the immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit,’ 
O for the 4 spirit-stirring drum, and the ear-splitting 
fife’ 4 in these piping times of peace.’ Small wonder it 
was that with the clang and clank of sabre and artillery 
in his ears, with the huzzas of comrades and the sparkle 
of the wine of war in his eyes, our hero wrote the never 
dying words that made him famous. How the day comes 
back with all its pageantry, the caparisoned horses, the 
handsome men stepping to the music of inspiring melody, 
the clarion commands of the officers, and the steady rum¬ 
ble of a thousand feet upon the battle ground, going care¬ 
less whether to death or immortality in deathless fame.” 

A curious thing is that deathless fame which Martin 
speaks of — a passing curious thing ; for when word came 
of Henry Schnitzler’s death, Mary Murphy, of the Thayer 
House, put off Gabriel Carnine’s ring, and wept many 
tears in the stage driver’s coffee and wore black in her hat 
for a year, and when Gabriel came home, she married him 
and all went as merrily as a wedding-bell. What covert 
tenderness or dream of gauzy romance was in her memory, 
the town could never know; but the Carnines’ first boy 
was named Henry, and for many years after the war, she 
was known among the men, who do not understand a 
woman’s heart, as the 44 War widow by brevet.” Yet that 
was Henry’s 44 deathless fame” in Sycamore Ridge, for the 
town has long since forgotten him, and even his name 
means nothing to our children, who see it on the bronze 
statue set up by the rich John Barclay to commemorate our 
soldier dead. 

But John was our first war hero. And when he brought 
his battle scars home that September night in ’61, for hours 
before the stage drove across Sycamore Creek the boy 


46 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


was filled with a nameless dread that he might be 
spanked. 

They carried him on a cot to his mother’s house, and 
put him in the great carved four-poster bed, and in the 
morning Miss Lucy came and hovered over him, and they 
talked of Captain Ward to her heart’s content, and the 
boy told Miss Lucy the gossip of the hospital, — that Cap¬ 
tain Ward was to be made a major, —and she kissed him 
and petted him until he was glad none of the boys was 
around to see the sickening spectacle. And then Miss 
Lucy and Mrs. Barclay told the child of their plans, — that 
Miss Lucy was going to war as a nurse, and that Mrs. 
Barclay was to teach the Sycamore Ridge school during 
the winter. And in a few weeks John was out of the 
hero business, working in Culpepper's store after school, 
and getting used to a limp that stayed with him all his life. 

The next spring he traded a carbine that he brought 
home from the army for an Indian pony, and then lie began 
business for himself. He organized the cows of the town 
into a town herd and took them ever}' morning to pasture 
on the prairie. All day he rode in the open air, and the 
town boys came out to play with him, and they explored 
the cave by his mother’s house, and with their sling-shots 
killed quails and prairie chickens and cooked them, and 
they played war through the long summer days. But 
John did not grow as the other boys grew ; he remained 
undersized, and his limp put him at a disadvantage ; so he 
had few fights, but he learned cunning, and got his way by 
strategy rather than by force — but he always had his way. 
He was strong ; the memory of what he had seen and what 
he had been that one awful day in the battle made lines 
on his face ; sometimes at night he would wake screaming, 
when he dreamed he was running away from the surgeon 
with the bloody knife in his teeth and that the man was 
going to throw an arm at him. And when he wished to 
bring Ellen Culpepper to time he would begin in a low 
terrorful voice, “ And I saw — the man — take — a — 
g-r-e-a-t 1-o-n-g knife d-r-i-p-p-i-n-g with r-e-d-b-l-o*o-d 
out of his t-e-e-t-h and go slish, k-slish,” but he never got 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


47 


farther than this, for the girl would begin shaking, and if 
they were alone, would run to him and grab him and put 
her hand to his mouth to make him stop. 

And so his twelfth year passed under the open sky in 
the sunshine in summer and in winter working after 
school in town where men were wanting, and where a boy 
could always find work. He grew brown and lean, and 
as his voice grew squeaky and he sang alto in the school, 
he became more and more crafty and masterful. The fact 
that his mother was the teacher, did not give him more 
rights in school than other boys, for she was a sensible 
woman, but it gave him a prestige on the playground that 
he was not slow to take. He was a born trader ; and he 
kept what he got and got more. His weakness was 
music. He kept two cows in his herd in the summer 
time in return for the use of the melodeon at the Thayer 
House, and moved it to his own home and put it in the 
crowded little room, and practised on it at night when 
the other boys were loafing at the town pump. For a 
consideration in marbles he taught Buck Culpepper the 
chords in “ G ” on the guitar, and for further consideration 
taught him the chords in “ D ” and “ C,” and with the aid 
of Jimmy Fernald, aged nine, and Molly Culpepper, aged 
eleven, one with a triangle and the other with a pumpkin 
reed pipe, John organized his Band, which he led with his 
mouth-organ, and exhibited in Culpepper s barn, appro¬ 
priating to himself as the director the pins charged at 
the door. Forty years afterward, when Molly called his 
attention to his failure to divide with the children, John 
Barclay smiled as he lifted his lame foot to a fat leather 
chair in front of him and said, “That was what we call 
the promoter’s profit.” And then the talk ran to Ellen, 
and John opened his great desk and from a box without 
a mark on it he brought out a tintype picture of Ellen at 
fourteen, a pink-cheeked child in short sleeves, with the 
fringe of her pantalets showing above her red striped 
stockings and beneath her bulging skirts, and with a 
stringy, stiff feather rising from the front of her narrow- 
rimmed hat. 


48 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


During the time when he was going to school by day and 
working evenings and caring for the town herd through 
the summer, the war was dragging wearily on. Sometimes 
a soldier came home on a furlough and there was news 
of the Sycamore Ridge men, but oftener it was a season 
of waiting and working. The women and children cared 
for the farms and the stores as best they could and lived, 
heaven only knows how, and opened every newspaper with 
horror and dread, and glanced down the long list of names 
of the dead, the missing and the wounded, fearful of what 
they might see. Mrs. Barclay heard from Miss Lucy and 
through her kept track of Philemon Ward, who was trans¬ 
ferred to another regiment after he was made major. 
And when he was made a colonel at Shiloh, there were 
tear blots on Miss Lucy’s letter that told of it, and after 
Appomattox he was brevetted a general. As for Captain 
Culpepper, he came home a colonel, and Jake Dolan came 
home a first lieutenant. But Watts McHurdie came home 
with a letter from Lincoln about his song, and he was the 
greatest man of all of them. 

It is odd that S} r camore Ridge grew during the war. 
Where the people came from, no one could say^—yet they 
came, and young Barclay remembered even during the 
war of playing in the foundations and running over the 
rafters of new houses. But when the war closed, the great 
caravan that had lagged while the war was raging, began 
to trail itself steadily in front of Mrs. Barclay’s door,, 
through the streets of Sycamore Ridge and out over the 
western hills. Soldiers with their families passed, going 
to the free homesteads, and the line of movers’ wagons 
began with daybreak and rumbled by far into the night. 
But hundreds of wagons stopped in Sycamore Ridge, and 
the stage came crowded every night. Brick buildings, 
the town’s mortal pride, began showing their fronts on 
Main Street, and other streets in the town began to assert 
themselves. Mrs. Barclay’s school grew from a score of 
children in 1864 to three rooms full in ’65, and in ’66 the 
whole town turned out to welcome General and Mrs. 
Ward, she that was Miss Lucy Barnes, and there was a re- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


49 


union of “ C ” Company that niglit, and a camp-fire in Cul¬ 
pepper Hall, and the next day Lige Bemis was painting a 
sign which read “ Philemon R. Ward, Attorney-at-Law, 
Pension Matters Promptly Attended To.” And the first 
little Ward was born at the Thayer House and named Eli 
Thayer Ward. 

The spring that found John Barclay sixteen years old 
found him a browned, gray-eyed, lumpy sort of a boy, big 
at the wrong places, and stunted at the wrong places, with 
a curious, uneven sort of an education. He knew all 
about Walden Pond; and he knew his Emerson — and was 
mad with passion to see the man; he had travelled over the 
world with Scott; had crossed the bridge with Caesar in 
his father’s books; had roamed the prairie and the woods 
with Cooper's Indians; had gone into the hearts of men 
with Thackeray and Dickens, holding his mother’s hand 
and listening to her voice; but he knew algebra only as a 
name, and rhetoric was a dictionary word with him. Of 
earthly possessions he had two horses, a bill of sale for his 
melodeon, a saddle, a wagon, a set of harness ; four mouth- 
organs, one each in “ A,” “ D,” “ E,” and “ C,” all care¬ 
fully rolled in Canton flannel on a shelf above his bed; one 
concertina,—a sort of German accordion,— five pigs, a cow, 
and a bull calf. Moreover, there were two rooms in the 
Barclay home ; and the great rock was gone from the door 
of the cave, and a wooden door was in its place and the 
Barclays were using it for a spring-house. The boy had a 
milk route and sold butter to the hotel. But the chiefest 
treasure of the household was John’s new music book. 
And while he played on his melodeon, Ellen Culpepper’s 
eyes smiled from the pages and her voice moved in the 
melodies, and his heart began to feel the first vague vibra¬ 
tion with the great harmony of life. And so the pimples 
on his chin reddened, and the squeak in his voice began 
to squawk, and his big milky eyes began to see visions 
wherein a man was walking through this vain world. As 
for Ellen Culpepper, her shoe tops were tiptoeing to her 
skirts, and her eyes were full of dreams of the warrior bold, 
“with spurs of gold,” who “sang merrily his lay.” And 


E 


50 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


rising from these dreams, she always stepped on her feet. 
But that was a long time ago, and men and women have 
been born and loved and married and brought children 
into the world since then. For it was a long time 
ago 


CHAPTER IV 


The changes of time are hard to realize. One knows, 
of course, that the old man once was young. One under¬ 
stands that the tree once was a sapling, and conversely we 
know that the child will be a man and the gaunt sapling 
stuck in the earth in time will become a great spreading 
tree. But the miracle of growth passes not merely our 
understanding, but our imagination. 

So though men tell us, and grow black in the face with 
the vehemence of telling, that the Sycamore Ridge of 
the sixties — a gray smudge of unpainted wooden houses 
bordering the Santa Fe trail, with the street merging into 
the sunflowers a block either way from the pump, — is 
the town that now lies hidden in the elm forest, with its 
thirty miles of paving and its scores of acres of wide velvet 
lawns, with its parks wherein fountains play, guarded 
by cannon discarded by the pride of modern war, with the 
court-house on the brink of the hill that once was far 
west of the town and with twenty-two thousand people 
whizzing around in trolleys, rattling about in buggies or 
scooting down the shady avenues in motor-cars — what¬ 
ever the records may show, the real truth we know ; the 
towns are not the same ; the miracle of growth cannot fool 
us. And yet here is the miracle in the making. Always 
in John Barclay’s eyes when he closed them to think of 
the first years that followed the war between the states, 
rose visions of yellow pine and red bricks and the litter and 
debris of building ; always in his ears as he remembered 
those days were the confused noises of wagons whining 
and groaning under their heavy loads, of gnawing saws 
and rattling hammers, of the clink of trowels on stones, 
of the swish of mortar in boxes, and of the murmur of the 
tide of hurry i ng feet over board sidewalks, ebbing and flowing 
night and morning. In those days new boys came to town 

61 


52 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


so rapidly that sometimes John met a boy in swimming 
whom he did not know, and, even in 1866, when Ellen and 
Molly Culpepper were giving a birthday party for Ellen, 
she declared that she “ simply couldn’t have all the new 
people there.” 

And so in the sixties the boy and the town went through 
their raw, gawky, ugly adolescence together. As streets 
formed in the town, ideas took shape in the boy’s mind. 
As Lincoln Avenue was marked out on the hill, where 
afterward the quality of the town came to live, so in the 
boy’s heart books that told him of the world outlined 
vague visions. Boy fashion he wrote to Bob Hendricks 
once or twice a month or a season, as the spirit moved him, 
and measured everything with the eyes of his absent friend. 
For he came to idealize Bob, who was out in the wonder¬ 
ful world, and their letters in those days were curious 
compositions — full of adventures by field and wood, and 
awkward references to proper books to read, and cures for 
cramps and bashfully expressed aspirations of the soul, 
Bob’s father had become a general, and when the war 
closed, he was sent west to fight the Indians, and he took 
Lieutenant Jacob Dolan with him, and Bob sent to John 
news of the Indian fighting that glorified Bob further. 

And when a letter came to the Ridge from Dolan an¬ 
nouncing that he and the Hendricks family were coming 
back to the Ridge to live, — the general to look after his 
neglected property, and Dolan to start a livery-stable, — 
John heard the news with a throb of great joy. When a 
letter from Bob confirmed the news, John began to count 
the days. For the love of boys is the most unselfish thing 
in a selfish world. They met awkwardly and sheepishly 
at the stage, and greeted each other with grunts, and be¬ 
came inseparable. Bob came back tall, lanky, grinny, and 
rather dumb, and he found John undersized, wiry, master¬ 
ful, and rather mooney, but strong and purposeful, for a 
boy. But each accepted the other as perfect in every 
detail. . 

Nothing Bob did changed John’s attitude, and nothing 
John did made Bob waver in his faith in John. Did the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


53 


boys come to John with a sickening story that Bob’s sister 
made him bring a towel to the swimming hole, John 
glared at them a moment and then waved them aside with, 
“Well, yon big brutes, — didn’t you know what it was 
for?” When they reported to John that Bob’s father 
was making him tip his hat to the girls, they got, instead 
of the outbreak of scorn they expected, “Well — did the 
girls tip back ? ” And when Bob’s sister said that the 
Barclay boy — barefooted, curly-headed, dusty, and sun¬ 
burned — looked like something the old cat had dragged 
into the house, the boy was impudent to his sister and 
took a whipping from his father. 

That fail the children of Sycamore Ridge assembled for 
the first time in their new seven-room stone sehoolhouse, 
and the two boys were in the high school. The board 
hired General Philemon Ward to teach the twenty high 
school pupils, and it was then he first began co wear the 
white neckties which he never afterwards abandoned. 
Ward’s first clash with John Barclay occurred when Ward 
organized a military company. John’s limp kept him out 
of it, so he broke up the company and organized a literary 
society, of which he was president and Ellen Culpepper 
secretary, and a constitution was adopted exempting the 
president and secretary from work in the society. It was 
natural enough that Bob Hendricks should be made treas¬ 
urer, and that these three officers should be the programme 
committee, and then a long line of vice-presidents and as¬ 
sistant secretaries and treasurers and monitors was elected 
by the society. 

So John became the social leader of the group of boys 
and girls who were just coming out of kissing games into 
dances at one another’s homes in the town. John decided 
who should be in the “ crowd ” and who might be invited 
only when a mixed crowd was expected. Fathers desiring 
trade, and mothers faithful to church ties, protested ; but 
John Barclay had his way. It was his crowd. They 
called themselves the “ Spring Chickens,” and as John had 
money saved to spend as he pleased, he dictated many 
things ; but he did not spend his money, he lent it, and his 


54 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


barn was stored with skates and sleds and broken guns 
and scrap-iron held as security, while his pockets bulged 
with knives taken as interest. 

As the winter waned and the Spring Chickens waxed 
fat in social honours, Bob Hendricks glanced up from his 
algebra one day, and discovered that little Molly Culpep¬ 
per had two red lips and two pig-tail braids of hair that 
reached below her waist. Then and there he shot her 
deftly with a paper wad, chewed and fired through a cane 
pipe-stem, and waited till she wiped it off her cheek with 
her apron and made a face at him, before he plunged into 
the mysteries of # 2 ~j-2 xy+y 1 . And thus another old 
story began, as new and as fresh as when Adam and Eve 
walked together in the garden. 

John Barclay was so busy during his last year in the 
Sycamore Ridge school that he often fancied afterwards 
that the houses on Lincoln Avenue in Culpepper addition 
must have come with the grass in the spring, for he has no 
memory of their building. Neither does he remember 
when General Madison Hendricks built the brick building 
on the corner of Main Street and Fifth Avenue, in which 
he opened the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore 
Ridge. Yet John remembered that his team and wagon 
were going all winter, hauling stone for the foundation of 
the Hendricks home on the hill — a great brick structure, 
with square towers and square “ells ” rambling off on the 
prairie, and square turrets with ornate cornice pikes prick¬ 
ing the sky. For years the two big houses standing side 
by side — the Hendricks house and the Culpepper house, 
with its tall white pillars reaching to the roof, its double 
door and its two white wings spreading over the wide 
green lawn — were the show places of Sycamore Ridge, 
and the town was alwa} r s divided in its admiration for 
them. John’s heart was sadly torn between them. Yet 
he was secretly glad to learn from his mother that his 
Uncle Union’s house in Haverhill had tall columns, green 
blinds on the white woodwork, and a wide hall running 
down the centre. For it made him feel more at home at the 
Culpeppers’. But when the Hendricks’ piano came, after 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


55 


they moved into the big house, the boy’s heart was opened 
afresh ; and he spent hours with Bob Hendricks at the 
piano, when he knew he would be welcome at the Culpep¬ 
pers’. He leased his town herd in the summer to Jimmie 
Fernald giving him the right to take the cows to the 
commons around town upon the payment of five dollars a 
month to John for keeping out of the business, and pass¬ 
ing Jimmie good-will. In the meantime, by day, John 
worked his team, and hired two others and took contracts 
for digging cellars. At nights he went to the country 
with his concertina and played for dances, making two 
dollars a night, and General Hendricks for years pointed 
with pride to the fact that when the Exchange National 
Bank of Sycamore Ridge opened for business the first 
morning, standing at the head of the line of depositors 
was John Barclay, with his concertina under his arm, just 
as he had returned from a country dance at daylight, 
waiting to be first in line, with $178.53 in his pocket to 
deposit. That deposit slip, framed, still hangs over the 
desk in the office of the president of the bank, and when 
John Barclay became famous, it was always a part of the 
44 Art Loan Exhibit,” held by the women in Barclay 
Memorial Hall. 

That summer of ’67 John capitulated to life, held his 
hands up for the shackles and put on shoes in summer for 
the first time. Also, he only went swimming twice — 
both times at night, and he bought his first box of paper 
collars and his mother tried to make his neckties like 
those in Dorman’s store ; but some way she did not get 
the hang of it, and John bought a Sunday necktie of 
great pride, and he and his mother agreed that it was off 
the tail of Joseph’s coat of many colours. But he wore it 
only on state occasions. At work, he made an odd figure 
limping over the dirt heaps and into the excavations boss¬ 
ing men old enough to be his father. He wore a serious 
face in those days, — for a boy, — and his mouth was al¬ 
most hard, but something burned in his eyes that was 
more than ambition, though that lighted his face like a 
flame, and he was always whistling or singing. At night 


56 


A CERTAIN RICH MAiN 


he and Bob Hendricks wandered away together, and some 
times they walked out under the stars and talked as boys 
will talk of their little world and the big world about 
them, or sometimes they sat reading at one or the other’s 
home, and one would walk home with the other, and the 
other walk a piece of the way back. They read poetry 
and mooned; “ Lalla Rookh ” appealed to John because 
of its music and melody, and both boys devoured Byron, 
and gobbled over the “ Corsair ” and the “ Giaour ” and 
“ Childe Harold ” with the book above the table, and came 
back from the barn on Sundays licking their chops after 
surreptitiously nibbling “Don Juan.” But they had 
Captain Mayne Reid and Kingsley as an antidote, and 
they soon got enough of Byron. 

The two boys persuaded each other to go away to 
school, and John chose the state university because it 
was cheap and because he heard he could get work in 
Lawrence to carry him through. He did not recollect 
that his mother had any influence in the matter ; but in 
those days she always seemed to be sitting by the lamp in 
their little home, sewing, with his shirts and underwear 
strewn about her. She had a permanent place in the 
town schools, and the Barclay home had grown to a 
kitchen and two bedrooms as well as the big room with its 
fireplace. His mother’s hair was growing gray at the 
temples, but her clear, firm, unwrinkled skin and strong 
broad jaw kept youth in her countenance, and as Martin 
Culpepper wrote in the Biography, where he names the 
pioneers of Sycamore Ridge whose lives influenced Watts 
McHurdie’s, “the three graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, 
were mirrored in her smile.” 

One night when the boy came in tired after his night’s 
ramble, he left his mother, as he often did those last 
nights before he went away to school, bending over her 
work, humming a low happy-noted song, even though the 
hour was late. He lay in his bed beside the open window 
looking out into the night, dreaming with open eyes about 
life. Perhaps he actually dreamed a moment, for he did 
not hear her come into the room ; but he felt her bend 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


57 


ovei him, and a tear dropped on his face from hers. He 
turned toward her, and she put her arms about his neck. 
Then she sobbed: 44 Oh, good-by, my little boy — good- 
by. I am coming here to bid you good-by, every night 
now.” He kissed her hand, and she was silent a moment, 
and then she spoke : 44 1 know this is the last of it all, 
John. You will never come back to me again — not you, 
but a man. And you will seem strange, and I will seem 
strange.” She paused a moment to let the cramp in her 
throat leave, then she went on : 44 1 was going to say so 
many things — when this time came, but they’re all gone. 
But oh, my boy, my little tender-hearted boy — be a good 
man — just be a good man, John.” And then she sobbed 
for an unrestrained minute : 44 O God, when you take my 
boy away, keep him clean, and brave, and kind, and — O 
God, make him — make him a good man.” And with a 
pat and a kiss she rose and said as she left him, 44 Now 
good night, Johnnie, go to sleep.” 

In the Sycamore Ridge Banner for September 12,1867, 
appeared some verses by Watts McHurdie, beginning: — 

“ Hail and farewell to thee, friend of my youth, 

Pilgrim who seekest the Fountain of Truth, 

Ilail and farewell to thy innocent pranks, 

No more can I send thee for left-handed cranks. 

Farewell, and a tear laves the ink on my pen, 

For ne’er shall I ’lioint thee with strap-oil again.” 

It was a noble effort, and in his notes to the McHurdie 
poems following the Biography published over thirty years 
after those lines were written, Colonel Culpepper writes : 
44 This touching, though somewhat humorous, poem was 
written on the occasion of the departure for college of one 
who since has become listed with the world’s great captains 
of finance — none other than Honourable John Barclay, 
whose fame is too substantial to need encomium in these 
humble pages. Suffice it to say that between these two 
men, our hero, the poet, and the great man of affairs, there 
has always remained the closest friendship, and each carries 
in his bosom, wrapped in the myrrh of fond memory, the 


58 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


deathless blossom of friendship, that sweetest flower in the 
conservatory of the soul.” 

The day before John left for Lawrence he met Lieuten¬ 
ant Jacob Dolan. 

“ So ye’re going to college — ay, Johnnie ? ” 

“ Yes, Mr. Dolan,” replied the boy. 

“ Well, they’re all givin’ you somethin’, Johnnie : Watts 
here has given a bit of a posey in verse; and my friend, 
General Hendricks, I’m told, has given you a hundred- 
dollar note; and General Philemon Ward has given you 
Wendell Phillips’orations; and your sweetheart — God 
bless her, whoever she is — will be givin’ ye the makins’ 
of a broken heart; and your mother’ll be givin’ you her 
blessin’ — and the saints’ prayers go with ’em ; and me, 
havin’ known your father before you and the mother that 
bore you, and seein’ her rub the roses off her cheeks tryin’ 
to keep your ornery little soul in your worthless little 
body, I’ll give you this sentiment to put in your pipe and 
smoke : John Barclay, man — if they ever he’s a law agin 
damn fools, the first raid the officers should make is on the 
colleges. And now may ye be struck blind before ye get 
your education and dumb if it makes a fool of ye.” And 
so slapping the bo}^ on the back, Jake Dolan went down 
the street winding in and out among the brick piles and 
lumber and mortar boxes, whistling “ Tread on the Tail of 
me Coat.” 

For life was all so fine and gay with Lieutenant Dolan 
in those days. And he whistled and sang, and thought 
what he pleased, and said what he pleased, and did what he 
pleased, and if the world didn’t like it, the world could 
picket its horses and get out of Jacob Dolan’s livery barn. 
For Mr. Dolan was thinking that from the livery-stable to 
the office of sheriff is but a step in this land of the free 
and home of the brave; so he carried his head back and his 
chest out and invited insult in the fond hope of provoking 
assault. He was the flower of the times, — effulgent, rather 
gaudy, and mostly red I 


CHAPTER V 


Good times came to Sycamore Ridge in the autumn. 
The dam across the creek was furnishing power for a flour- 
mill and a furniture factory. The endless worm of wagons 
that was wriggling through the town carrying movers to 
the West, was sloughing many of its scales in Sycamore 
Ridge. Martin Culpepper had been East with circulars 
describing the town and adjacent country. He had 
brought back three stage loads of settlers, and was selling 
lots in Culpepper’s addition faster than they could be sur¬ 
veyed. The Frye blacksmith shop had become a wagon 
shop, and then a hardware store was added; the flag flut¬ 
tered from the high flagstaff over the Exchange National 
Bank building, and all day long farmers were going from 
the mill to the bank. General Philemon Ward gave up 
school-teaching and went back to his law office; but he 
was apt to take sides with President Andrew Johnson too 
vigorously for his own good, and clients often avoided his 
office in fear of an argument. Still he was cheerful, and 
being onty in his early thirties, looked at the green hills 
afar from his pasture and was happy. The Thayer House 
was filled with guests, and the Fernalds had money in the 
bank ; Mary Murphy and Gabriel Carnine were living hap¬ 
pily ever after, and Nellie Logan was clerking in Dorman’s 
Dry Goods store and making Watts McHurdie understand 
that she had her choice between a preacher and a drummer. 
Other girls in the dining room of the Thayer House were 
rattling the dinner dishes and singing 44 Sweet Belle Ma- 
hone” and 44 Do you love me, Molly Darling?” to ensnare 
the travelling public that might be tilted back against the 
veranda in a mood for romance. And as John and Bob 
that hot September afternoon made the round of the stores 
and offices bidding the town good-by, it seemed to them 
that perhaps they were seizing the shadow and letting the 

59 


60 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


substance fade. Foi it was such a good-natured busy little 
place that their hearts were heavy at leaving it. 

But that evening John in his gorgeous necktie, his 
clean paper collar, his new stiff hat, his first store clothes, 
wearing proudly his father's silver watch and chain, set 
out to say good-by to Ellen Culpepper, and his mother, 
standing in the doorway of their home, sighed at his limp 
and laughed at his strut — the first laugh she had enjoyed 
in a dozen days. 

John and Bob together went up the stone walk leading 
across a } r ard, still littered with the debris of building, to 
the unboxed steps that climbed to the veranda of the Cul¬ 
pepper house. There they met Colonel Culpepper in his 
shirt-sleeves, walking up and down the veranda admiring 
the tall white pillars. When he had greeted the boys, he 
put his thumbs in his vest holes and continued his parade 
in some pomp. The boys were used to this attitude of 
the colonel’s toward themselves and the pillars. It al¬ 
ways followed a hearty meal. So they sat respectfully 
while he marched before them, pointing occasionally, when 
he took his cigar from his mouth and a hand from his vest, 
to some feature of the landscape in the sunset light that 
needed emphatic attention. 

44 Yes, sir, young gentlemen,” expanded the colonel, 
44 you are doing the right and proper thing — the right 
and proper thing. Of all the avocations of youth, I con¬ 
ceive the pursuit of the sombre goddess of learning to be the 
most profitable — entirely the most profitable. I myself, 
though a young man, — being still on the right side of forty, 
—have reaped the richest harvest from my labours in 
the classic shades. Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, 
I, like you, left my ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian 
spring. In point of fact, I attended the institution founded 
by Thomas Jefferson, the father of the American democ¬ 
racy— yes, sir.” He put his cigar back in his mouth and 
added, 44 Yes, sir, you are certainly taking a wise and, I may 
say, highly necessary step — ” 

Mrs. Culpepper, small, sprightly, blue-eyed, and calm, 
entered the veranda, and cut the colonel off with : 44 Good 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


61 


evening, boys. So you are going away. Well — we’ll 
miss you. The girls will be right out.” 

But the colonel would not be quenched; his fires were 
burning deeply. “ As I was saying, Mrs. Culpepper,” he 
went on, “ the classic training obtained from a liberal edu¬ 
cation such as it was my fortune — 

Mrs. Culpepper smiled blandly as she put in, “ Now, pa, 
these boys don’t care for that.” 

“But, my dear, let me finish. As 1 started to say : the 
flowers of poetry, Keats and his large white plumes, the 
contemplation of nature’s secrets, the reflective study of — ” 

“Yes, — here’s your coat now, pa,” said the wife, 
returning from a dive into the hall. “ John, how’s your 
ma going to get on without you ? And, pa, be sure don’t- 
forget the eggs for breakfast. I declare since we’ve moved 
up here so far from the stores, we nearly starve.” 

The colonel waited a second while a glare melted into a 
smile, and then backed meekly into the arms stretched high 
to hold his alpaca coat. As he turned toward the group, he 
was beaming. “ If it were not,” exclaimed the colonel, 
addressing the young men with a quizzical smile, “that 
there is a lady present — a very important lady in point of 
fact, — I might be tempted to say, 4 1 will certainly be 
damned!’” And with that the colonel lifted Mrs. Cul¬ 
pepper off her feet and kissed her, then lumbered down the 
steps and strode away. He paused at the gate to gaze at 
the valley and turned to look back at the great unfinished 
house, then swung into the street and soon his hat disap¬ 
peared under the hill. 

As he went Mrs. Culpepper said, “ Let them say what 
they will about Mart Culpepper, I always tell the girls if 
they get as good a man as their pa, they will be doing 
mighty well.” 

Then the girls appeared bulging in hoops, and ruffles, 
with elbow sleeves, with a hint of their shoulders showing 
and with pink ribbons in their hair. Clearly it was a state 
occasion. The mother beamed at them a moment, and 
walked around Molly, saying, “I told you that was all 
right,” and tied Ellen’s hair ribbon over, while the young 


62 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


people were chattering, and before the boys knew It, she 
had faded into the dusk of the hall, and the clattering of 
dishes came to them from the rear of the house. John 
fancied he felt the heavy step of Buchanan Culpepper, and 
then he heard : “ Don’t you talk to me, Buck Culpepper, 
about woman's work You'll do what I tell you, and if I 
say wipe dishes — ” the voice was drowned by the rattle 
of a passing wagon. And soon the young people on the front 
porch were so busy with their affairs that the house behind 
them and its affairs dropped to another world. They say, 
who seem to know, that when any group of boys and girls 
meet under twenty-five serious years, the recording angel 
puts down his pen with a sigh and takes a needed nap. But 
when the group pairs off, then Mr. Recorder pricks up his 
ears and works with both hands, one busy taking what the 
youngsters say, and the other busy with what they would 
like to say. And shame be it upon the courage of youth 
that wliat they would like to say fills the larger book. And 
marvel of marvels, often the book that holds what the boys 
would say is merely a copy of what the girls would like to 
hear, and so much of the work is saved to the angel. 

It was nine o’clock when the limping boy and the slen¬ 
der girl followed the tali youth and the plump little girl 
down the walk from the Culpepper home through the gate 
and into the main road. And the couple that walked be¬ 
hind took the opposite direction from that which they 
took who walked ahead. Yet when John and Ellen 
reached the river and were seated on the mill-dam, where 
the roar of the falling water drowned their voices, Ellen 
Culpepper spoke first: “ That looks like them over on the 
bridge. I can see Molly, and Bob’s hat about three feet 
above her.” 

“ I guess so,” returned the boy. He was reaching be¬ 
hind him for clods and pebbles to toss into the white 
foaming flood below them. The girl reached back and 
got one, then another, then their hands met, and she 
pulled hers away and said, “Get me some stones.” He 
gave her a handful, and she threw the pebbles away 
slowly and awkwardly, one at a time. There was a long 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


63 


gap in their talk while they threw the pebbles. The girl 
closed it with, “Ma made old Buck wipe the dishes.’ 1 
Then she giggled, u Poor Buckie.” 

John managed to say, “Yes, I heard him.” Then he 
added, “What does your mother think of Bob?” 

“Oh, she likes him fine. But she’s glad you’re all go¬ 
ing away.” 

The boy asked why and the girl returned, “ Watch me 
hit that log.” She threw, and missed the water. 

“Why ?” persisted the boy. 

The girl was digging in a crevice for a stone and said, 
“ Can you get that out ? ” 

John worked at it a moment and handed it to her with, 
“ Why?” 

She threw it, standing up to give her arm strength. 
She sat down and folded her hands and waited for another 
“why.” When it came she said, “Oh, you know why.” 
When he protested she answered, “Ma thinks Molly’s 
too young.” 

“Too young for what?” demanded the boy, who knew. 

“Too young to be going with boys.” 

There was a long pause, then he managed to say it, 
“She’s no younger than you were—nor half as old.” 

“When?” returned the girl, giving him the broadside 
of her eyes for a second, and letting them droop. The 
eyes bewitched the boy, and he could not speak. At 
length the girl shivered, “It’s getting cold — I must go 
home.” 

The boy found voice. “Aw no, Bob and Molly are 
still up there.” 

She started to rise, he caught her hand, but she pulled 
it away and resigned herself for a moment. Then she 
looked at him a long second and said, “Do you remem¬ 
ber years ago at the Frye boy’s party—when we were 
little tots, and I chose you?” 

The boy nodded his head and turned full toward her 
with serious eyes. He devoured her feature by feature 
with his gaze in the starlight. The moon was just rising 
at the end of the mill-dam behind them, and its light fell 


64 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


on her profile. He cried out, “Yes, Ellen, do you—d<* 

you?” 

She nodded her head and spoke quickly, “That was 
the time you got your hands stuck in the taffy and had to 
be soaked out.” 

They laughed. John tried to get the moment back. 
“Do you remember the rubber ring I gave you?” 

She grew bold and turned to him with her heart in her 
face: “Yes—yes, John, and the coffee-bean locket. I’ve 
got them both in a little box at home.” Then, scam¬ 
pering back to her reserve, she added, “You know ma says 
I’m a regular rat to store things away.” She felt that 
the sudden reserve chilled him, for in a minute or two she 
said, looking at the bridge: “They’re going now. We 
mustn’t stay but a minute.” She put her hand on the 
rock between them, and said, “You remember that night 
when you went away before?” Before he answered she 
went on : “I was counting up this afternoon, and it’s six 
years ago. We were just children then.” 

Again the boy found his voice: “ Ellen Culpepper, 
we’ve been going together seven years. Don’t you think 
that’s long enough ? ” 

“We were just children then,” she replied. 

The boy leaned awkwardly toward her and their hands 
met on the rock, and he withdrew his aj he asked, “Do 
you — do you ? ” 

She bent toward him, and looked at him steadily as she 
nodded her head again and again. She rose to go, say¬ 
ing, “We mustn’t stay here any longer.” 

He caught her hand to stop her, and said, “Ellen — 
Ellen, promise me just one thing.” She looked her ques¬ 
tion. He cried, “That you won’t forget — just that you 
won't forget.” 

She took his hand and stood before him as he sat, hop¬ 
ing to stay her. She answered: “Not as long as I live, 
John Barclay. Oh, not as long as I live.” Then she ex¬ 
claimed: “Now — ” and her voice changed, “we just 
must go, John ; Molly’s gone, and it’s getting late.” She 
helped him limp over the rocks and up the steep road, but 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


65 


when they reached the level, she dropped his hand, and 
they walked home slowly, looking back at the moon, so 
that they might not overtake the other couple. Once or 
twice they stopped and sat on lumber piles in the street, 
talking of nothing, and it was after ten o’clock when they 
came to the gate. The girl looked anxiously up the walk 
toward the house. “ They’ve come and gone,” she said. 
She moved as if to go away. 

“ I wish you wouldn’t go right in,” he begged. 

“ Oh — I ought to,” she replied. They were silent. 
The roar of the water over the dam came to them on the 
evening breeze. She put out her hand. 

“Well,” he sighed as he rested his lame foot, and 
started, “well — good-by.” 

She turned to go, and then swiftly stepped toward him, 
and kissed him, and ran gasping and laughing up the walk. 

The boy gazed after her a moment, wondering if he 
.should follow her, but while he waited she was gone, and he 
heard her lock the door after her. Then he limped down 
ihe road in a kind of swoon of joy. Sometimes he tried 
to whistle — he tried a bar of Schubert's “ Serenade,” but 
consciously stopped. Again and again under his breath 
as loud as he dared, he called the name “ Ellen ” and stood 
gazing at the moon, and then tried to hippety-hop, but 
his limp stopped that. Then he tried whistling the 
“ Miserere,” but he pitched it too high, and it ran out, so 
he sang as he turned across the commons toward home, 
and that helped a little; and he opened the door of his 
home singing, “ How can I leave thee — how can I bear to 
part? ” The light was burning in the kitchen, and he 
went to his mother and kissed her. His face was aglow, 
and she saw what had happened to him. She put him 
aside with, “ Run on to bed now, sonny; I’ve got a little 
work out here.” And he left her. In the sitting room 
only the moon gave light. He stood at the window a 
moment, and then turned to his melodeon. His hands 
fell on the major chord of “G,” and without knowing 
what he was playing he began “ Largo.” He played his 
soul into his music, and looking up, whispered the name 


F 


66 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ Ellen” rapturously over and over, and then as the music 
mounted to its climax the whole world’s mystery, and his 
personal thought of the meaning of life revelled through 
his brain, and he played on, not stopping at the close but 
wandering into he knew not what mazes of harmony. 
When his hands dropped, he was playing “ The Long and 
Weary Day,” and his mother was standing behind him 
humming it. When he rose from the bench, she ran her 
fingers through his hair and spoke the words of the song, 
“‘My lone watch keeping,’ John, ‘my lone watch keep¬ 
ing.’ But I think it has been worth while.” 

Then she left him and he went to bed, with the moon 
in his room, and the murmur of waters lulling him to sleep. 
But he looked out into the sky a long time before his dream 
came, and then it slipped in gently through the door of a 
nameless hope. For he wished to meet her in the moon 
that night, but when they did meet, the white veil of the 
falling waters of the dam blew across her face and he 
could not brush it away. For one is bold in dreams. 

A little after sunrise the next morning John rode away 
from his mother’s door, on one of his horses, leading the 
other one. He was going up the hill to get Bob Hen¬ 
dricks, and the two were to ride to Lawrence. He had been 
promised work, carrying newspapers, and the Yankee in 
him made him believe he could find work for the other 
horse. As the boy turned into Main Street waving his 
mother good-by, he saw the places where he and Ellen 
Culpepper had stopped the night before, and they looked 
different some way, and he could not realize that he was in 
the same street. 

As he climbed the hill, he passed General Ward, work¬ 
ing in his flower garden, and the man sprang over the 
fence and came into the road, and put his hand on the 
horse’s bridle, saying, “Stop a minute, John: 1 just 
wanted to say something.” He hesitated a moment be¬ 
fore going on: “You know bach whore I came from — 
back in New England — the name of John Barclay stands 
for a good deal — more than you can realize, John. Your 
father was one of the first martyrs of our cause. I guess 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


67 


your mother never has told you, but I’m going to — your 
father gave up a business career for this cause. His 
father was rich — very rich, and your grandfather was set 
on your father going into business.” John looked up the 
hill toward the Hendricks home, and Ward saw it, and 
mistook the glance for one of impatience. “Johnnie,” 
said the man, his tine thin features glowing with earnest¬ 
ness, “Johnnie—I wish I could get to your heart, boy. 
I want to make you hear what I have to say with your 
soul and not with your ears, and I know youth is so deaf. 
Your grandfather was angry when your father entered the 
ministry and came out here. He thought it was folly. 
The old man offered to give fifty thousand dollars to the 
Kansas-Nebraska cause, and that would have sent a good 
many men out here. But your father said no. He said 
money wouldn’t win this cause. He said personal sacrifice 
was all that would win it. He said men must give up 
themselves, not their money, to make this cause win — and 
so he came; and there was a terrible quarrel, and that is 
why your mother has stayed. She had faith in God, too 
— faith that her life some way in His Providence would 
prove worth something. Your father and mother, John, 
believed in God — they believed in a God, not a Moloch ; 
your father’s faith has been justified. The death he died 
was worth millions to the cause of liberty. It stirred the 
whole North, as the miserable little fifty thousand dollars 
that Abijah Barclay offered never could have done. But 
your mother’s sacrifice must find its justification in you. 
And she, not your father, made the final decision to give 
up everything for human freedom. She has endured 
poverty, Johnnie — ” the man’s voice was growing tense, 
and his eyes were ablaze ; “you know how she worked, 
and if you fail her, if you do not live a consecrated life, 
John, your mother’s life has failed. I don’t mean a pious 
life ; God knows I hate sanctimony. But I mean a life 
consecrated to some practical service, to an ideal — to 
some actual service to your fellows — not money service, 
but personal service. Do you understand?” Ward 
leaned forward and looked into the boy’s face. He took 


68 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


hold of John’s arm as he pleaded, “Johnnie-—boy—* 
Johnnie, do you understand? ” 

The boy answered, “ Yes, General —I think I get your 
meaning.” He picked up his bridle, and Ward relaxed 
his hold on the boy’s arm. The man’s hand dropped and 
he sighed, for he saw only a boy’s face, and heard a boy’s 
politeness in the voice that went on, “ Thank you, Gen¬ 
eral, give my love to Miss Lucy.” And the youth rode 
on up the hill. 

In a few minutes the boys were riding down the steep 
clay bank that led to the new iron bridge across the ford 
of the Sycamore, and for half an hour they rode, chattering 
through the wood before they came into the valley and 
soon were climbing the bluff which they had seen the night 
before from the Culpepper home. On the brow of the 
bluff Bob said, “ Hold on —” He turned His horse and 
looked back. The sun was on the town, and across on 
the opposite hill stood the colonel’s big house with its 
proud pillars. No trees were about it in those days, and 
it and the Hendricks house stood out clearly on the hori¬ 
zon. But on the top of the Culpepper home were two little 
figures waving handkerchiefs. The boys waved back, and 
John thought he could tell Ellen from her sister, and the 
night and its joy came back to him, and he was silent. 

They had ridden half an hour without speaking when 
Bob Hendricks said, “Awful fine girls—aren’t they?” 

“That’s what I’ve always told you,” returned John. 

After another quarter of a mile Bob tried it again. 
“The colonel’s a funny old rooster — isn’t he?” 

“ Well, I don't know. That day at the battle of Wil¬ 
son’s Creek when he walked out in front of a thousand sol¬ 
diers and got a Union flag and brought it back to the line, 
he didn’t look very funny. But he’s windy all right.” 

Again, as they crossed a creek and the horses were 
drinking, Bob said: “Father thinks General Ward’s a 
crank. He says Ward will keep harning on about those 
war bonds, and quarrelling because the soldiers got their 
pay in paper money and the bondholders in gold, until 
people will think every one in high places is a thief.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


69 


“Oh, Ward’s all right,” answered John. “He’s just 
talking; he likes an argument, I guess. He’s kind of 
built that way.” 

It was a poor starved-to-death school that the boys 
found at Lawrence in those days; with half a dozen in¬ 
structors— most of whom were still in their twenties; 
with books lent by the instructors, and with appliances 
devised by necessity. But John was happy ; he was mak¬ 
ing money with his horses, doing chores for his board, and 
carrying papers night and morning besides. The boy’s 
industry was the marvel of the town. His limp got him 
sympathy, and he capitalized the sympathy. Indeed, he 
would have capitalized his soul, if it had been necessar} 7 . 
For his Yankee blood was beginning to come out. Before 
he had been in school a year he had swapped, traded, and 
saved until he had two teams, and was working them 
with hired drivers on excavation contracts. In his sum¬ 
mer vacations he went to Topeka and worked his two 
teams, and by some sharp practice got the title to a third. 
He was rollicking, noisy, good-natured, but under the 
boyish veneer was a hard indomitable nature. He was 
becoming a stickler for his rights in every transaction. 

“John,” said Bob, one day after John had cut a particu¬ 
larly lamentable figure, gouging a driver in a settlement, 
“ don’t you know that your rights are often others’ 
wrongs ? ” 

John was silent a moment. He looked at the driver mov¬ 
ing away, and then the boy’s face set hard and he said: 
“Well—that’s the use of blubbering over him? If I 
don’t get it, some one else will. I’m no charitable institu¬ 
tion for John Walruff’s brewery ! ” And he snapped the 
rubber band on his wallet viciously, and turned to his books. 

But on the other hand he wrote every other day to his 
mother and every other day to Ellen Culpepper with un¬ 
wavering precision. He told his mother the news, and 
he told Ellen Culpepper the news plus some Emerson, 
something more of “Faust,” with such dashes of Long¬ 
fellow and Ruskin as seemed to express his soul. He 
never wrote to Ellen of money, and so strong was her in- 


r o 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


fluence upon him that when he had written to her after his 
quarrel with the driver, he went out in the night, hunted 
the man up, and paid him the disputed wages. Then 
he mailed Ellen Culpepper’s letter, and was a lover living 
in an ethereal world as he walked home babbling her name 
in whispers to the stars. Often when this mood was not 
upon him, and a letter was due to Ellen, he went down¬ 
stairs in the house where he lived and played the piano 
to bring her near to him. That never failed to change his 
face as by a miracle. “ When John comes upstairs,” wrote 
Bob Hendricks to Molly, “ he is as one in a dream, with 
the mists of the music in his eyes. I never bother him 
then. He will not speak to me, nor do a thing in the 
world, until that letter is written, sealed, and stamped. 
Then he gets up, yawns and smiles sheepishly and perhaps 
hits me with a book or punches me with his fist, and then we 
wrestle over the room and the bed like bear cubs. After 
the wrestle he comes back to himself. I wonder why ? ” 

And Ellen Culpepper read those letters from John Bar¬ 
clay over and over, and curiously enough she understood 
them ; for there is a telepathy between spirits that meet 
as these two children’s souls had met, and in that concord 
words drop out and only thoughts are merchandized. Her 
spirit grew with his, and so “through all the world she 
followed him.” 

But there came a gray dawn of a May morning when 
John Barclay clutched his bedfellow and whispered, 
“Bob, Bob—look, look.” When the awakened one saw 
nothing, John tried to scream, but could only gasp, “ Don’t 
you see Ellen — there — there by the table ? 4 ” But what¬ 
ever it was that startled him fluttered away on a beam of 
sunrise, and Bob Hendricks rose with the frightened boy, 
and went to his work with him. 

Two days later a letter came telling him that Ellen 
Culpepper was dead. 

Now death — the vast baffling mystery of death — is 
Fate’s strongest lever to pry men from their philosophy. 
And death came into this boy’s life before his creed was 
set and hard, and in those first days while he walked far 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


71 


afield, he turned his face to the sky in his lonely sorrow, 
and when he cried to Heaven there was a silence. 

So his heart curdled, and you kind gentlemen of the 
jury who are to pass on the case of John Barclay in this 
story, remember that he was only twenty years old, and 
that in all his life there was nothing to symbolize the joy 
of sacrifice except this young girl. All his boyish life she 
had nurtured the other self in his soul, — the self that 
might have learned to give and be glad in the giving. 
And when she went, he closed his Emerson and opened his 
Trigonometry, and put money in his purse. 1 

There came a time when Ellen Culpepper was to him as 
a dream. But she lived in her mother’s eyes, and through 
all the years that followed the mother watched the little 
girl grow to maturity and into middle life with the other 
girls of her age. And even when the little headstone 
on the Hill slanted in sad neglect, Mrs. Culpepper’s old 
eyes still saw Ellen growing old with her playmates. And 
she never saw John Barclay that she did not think of Ellen 
— and what she would have made of him. 

And what would she have made of him? Maybe a 
poet, maybe a dreamer of dreams — surely not the hard, 
grinding, rich man that he became in this world. 

1 To the Publisher. — “In returning the Mss. of the life of John Bar¬ 
clay, 'which you sent for my verification as to certain dates and incidents, 
let me first set down, before discussing matters pertaining to his later life, 
my belief that your author has found in the death of Ellen Culpepper an 
incident, humble though it is, that explains much in the character of Mr. 
Barclay. The incident probably produced a mental shock like that of a 
psychological earthquake, literally sealing up the spring of his life as it 
was flowing into consciousness at that time, and the John Barclay of his 
boyhood and youth became subterranean, to appear later in life after the 
weakening of his virility under the strain of the crushing events of his fifties. 
Yet the subterranean Barclay often appeared for a moment in his life, glowed 
in some kind act and sank again. Ellen Culpepper explains it all. How 
many of our lives are similarly divided, forced upward or downward by 
events, Heaven only knows. We do not know our own souls. I am sure 
John never knew of the transformation. Surely ‘ we are fearfully and 
wonderfully made.’ . . . The other dates and incidents are as I have 
indicated. . . . Allow me to thank you for your kindness in sending me 
the Mss., and permit me to subscribe myself, 

“Yours faithfully, 

“Philemon R. Ward.” 


CHAPTER VI 












John Barclay returned to Sycamore Ridge in 1872 a 
full-fledged young man. He was of a slight build and 
rather pale of face, for five years indoors had rubbed the 
sunburn off. During the five years he had been absent 
from Sycamore Ridge he had acquired a master's degree 
from the state university, and a license to practise law. 
He was distinctly dapper, in the black and white checked 
trousers, the flowered cravat, and tight-fitting coat of the 
period ; and the first Monda} 7- after he and his mother 
went to the Congregational Church, whereat John let out 
his baritone voice, he was invited to sing in the choir. 
Bob Hendricks came home a year before John, and with 
Bob and Watts McHurdie singing tenor at one end of the 
choir, and John and Philemon Ward holding down the 
other end of the line, with Mrs. Ward, Nellie Logan, 
Molly Culpepper, and Jane Mason of Minneola, — grown 
up out of short dresses in his absence, — all in gay colours 
between the sombre clothes of the men, the choir in the 
Congregational Church was worth going miles to see — if 
not to hear. 

Now you know, of course, — or if you do not know, it is 
high time you were learning,—that when Fate gives a 
man who can sing a head of curly hair, the devil, who is 
after us all, quits worrying about that young person. For 
the Old Boy knows that a voice and curly hair are mort¬ 
gages on a young man’s soul that few young fellows ever 
pay off. Now there was neither curly head nor music in 
all the Barclay tribe, and when John sang “Through the 
trees the night winds murmur, murmur low and sweet,” 
his mother could shut her eyes and hear Uncle Leander, 
the black sheep of three generations of Thatchers. So 
that the fact that John had something over a thousand 

72 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


73 


dollars to put in General Hendricks’ Lank, and owned 
half a dozen town lots in the various additions to the 
town, made the mother thankful for the Grandfather 
Barclay’s blood in him. But she saw a soul growing into 
the boy’s face that frightened her. What others ad¬ 
mired as strength she feared, for she knew it was ruth¬ 
lessness. What others called shrewdness she, remember¬ 
ing his Grandfather Barclay, knew might grow into blind, 
cruel greed, and when she thought of his voice and his 
curly hair, and recalled Uncle Leander, the curly-headed, 
singing ne’er-do-well of her family, and then in the boy’s 
hardening mouth and his canine jaw saw Grandfather 
Barclay sneering at her, she was uncertain which blood 
she feared most. So she managed it that John should go 
into partnership with General Ward, and Bob Hendricks 
managed it that the firm should have offices over the bank, 
and also that the firm was made attorneys for the bank, — 
the highest mark of distinction that may come to a law 
firm in a country town. The general realized it and was 
proud. But he thought the young man took it too much 
as a matter of course. 

44 John,” said the general, one day, as they were dividing 
their first five-hundred-dollar fee, 44 you’re a lucky dog. 
Everything comes so easily with you. Let me tell you 
something; I’ve figured this out: if you don’t give it 
back some way — give it back to the world, or society, or 
your fellows, — or God, if you like to bunch your good 
luck under one head,— you’re surely going to suffer for it. 
There is no.come-easy-go-easy in this world. I’ve learned 
that much of the scheme of things.” 

44 You mean that I’ve got to pay as I go, or Providence 
will keep books on me and foreclose?” asked John, as he 
stood patting the roll of bills in his trousers pocket. 

44 That’s the idea, son,” smiled the elder man. 

The younger man put his hand to his chin and grinned. 
44 1 suppose,” he replied, 44 that’s why so many men keep 
the title to their religious proclivities in their wife’s 
name.” He went out gayly, and the elder man heard 
the boyish limp almost tripping down the stairs. Ward 


74 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


walked to the window, straightening his white tie, and 
stood looking into the street at the young man shak¬ 
ing hands and bowing and raising his hat as he went. 
Ward’s hair was graying at the temples, and his thin 
smooth face was that of a man who spends many hours 
considering many things, and he sighed as he saw John 
turn a corner and disappear. 

“ No, Lucy, that’s not it exactly,” said the general that 
afternoon, as he brought the sprinkler full of water to the 
flower bed for the eighth time, and picketed little Harriet 
Beecher Ward out of the watermelon patch, and wheeled 
the baby’s buggy to the four-o‘clocks, where Mrs. Ward 
was working. “ It isn’t that he is conceited — the boy 
isn’t that at all. He just seems to have too little faith in 
God and too much in the ability of John Barclay. He 
thinks he can beat the game — can take out more happi¬ 
ness for himself than he puts in for others.” 

The wife looked up and put back her sunbonnet as she 
said, “Yes, I believe his mother thinks something of the 
kind.” 

One of the things that surprised John when he came 
home from the university was the prominence of Lige 
Bemis in the town. When John left Sycamore Ridge to 
go to school, Bemis was a drunken sign-painter married to 
a woman who a few years before had been the scandal of 
half a dozen communities. And now though Mrs. Bemis 
was still queen only of the miserable unpainted Bemis domi¬ 
cile in the sunflowers at the edge of town, Lige Bemis 
politically was a potentate of some power. General Hen¬ 
dricks consulted Bemis about politics. Often he was 
found in the back room of the bank, and Colonel Culpep¬ 
per, although he was an unterrified Democrat, in his cam¬ 
paign speeches referred to Bemis as “a diamond in the 
rough.” John was sitting on a roll of leather one day in 
Watts McHurdie’s shop talking of old times when Watts 
recalled the battle of Sycamore Ridge, and the time when 
Bemis came to town with the Red Legs and frightened 
Mrs. Barclay. 

64 Yes — and now look at him,” exclaimed John, “ dressed 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


75 


up like a gambler, and referred to in the Banner as 1 Hon. 
E. W. Bemis ’ ! How did he do it ? ” 

McHurdie sewed two or three long stitches in silence. 
He leaned over from his bench to throw his tobacco quid 
in the sawdust box under the rusty stove, then the little 
man scraped his fuzzy jaw reflectively with his blackened 
hand as if about to speak, but he thought better of it and 
waxed his thread. He showed his yellow teeth in a smile, 
and motioned John to come closer. Then he put his head 
forward, and whispered confidentially: — 

“ What’d you ruther do or go a-fishing ? ” 

“ But why ? ” persisted the young man. 

“ Widder who ? ” returned Watts, grinning and putting 
his hand to his ear. 

When John repeated his question the third time, Mc¬ 
Hurdie said: — 

“ I know a way you can get rich mighty quick, sonny.” 
And when the boy refused to “bite,” Watts went on: 
“If any one asks you what Watts McHurdie thinks about 
politics so long as he is in the harness business, you just 
take the fellow upstairs, and pull down the curtain, and 
lock the door, and tell him you don't know, and not to tell 
a living soul.” 

With Bob Hendricks, John had little better success in 
solving the mystery of the rise of Bemis. “Father says 
he’s effective, and he would rather have him for him than 
against him,” was the extent of Bob’s explanation. 

Ward’s answer was more to the point. He said : “Lige 
Bemis is a living example of the power of soft soap in 
politics. We know — every man in this county knows — 
that Lige Bemis was a horse thief before the war, and 
that he was a cattle thief and a camp-follower during the 
war; and after the war we know what he was — he and 
the woman he took up with. Yet here he has been a 
member of the legislature and is beginning to be a figure 
in state politics, — at least the one to whom the governor 
and all the fellows write when they want information 
about this county. Why ? I’ll tell you: because he’s 
committed every crime and can’t denounce one and goes 


76 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


about the country extenuating things and oiling people 
up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer — yes, 
sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his 
diploma into court two years ago, and they accepted it. 
But I know, and the court knows, and the bar knows it 
was forged; it belonged to his dead brother back in 
Hornellsville, New York. But Hendricks downstairs 
said we needed Lige in the county-seat case, so he is a 
member of the bar, taking one hundred per cent for collect¬ 
ing accounts for Eastern people, and giving the country a 
black eye. A man told me he was on over fifty notes 
for people at the bank; he signs with every one, and 
Hendricks never bothers him. He managed to get into 
all the lodges, right after the war when they were reor¬ 
ganized, and he sits up with the sick, and is pall-bearer 
— regular professional pal]-bearer, aiid I don’t doubt gets 
a commission for selling coffins from Livingston.” Ward 
rose from the table his full six feet and put his hands in 
his pocket and stretched his legs as he added, “And 
when you think how many Bemises in the first, second, or 
third degree there are in this government, you wonder if 
the Democrats weren’t right when they declared the war 
was a failure.” 

The general spoke as he did to John partly in anger 
and partly because lie thought the youth needed the 
lesson he was trying to implant. “ You know, Martin,” 
explained the general, a few days later, to Colonel Cul¬ 
pepper, “John has come home a Barclay — not a Barclay 
of his father’s stripe. He has taken back, as they say. 
It’s old Abijah—with the mouth and jaw of a wolf. I 
caught him palavering with a juror the other day while 
we had a case trying.” 

The colonel rested his hands on his knees a moment in 
meditation and smiled as he replied : “ Still, there’s his 
mother, General. Don’t ever forget that the boy's mother 
is Mary Barclay; she has bred most of the wolf out of him. 
And in the end her blood will tell.” 

And now observe John Barclay laying the footing stones 
of his fortune. He put every dollar he could get into 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


77 


town lots, paying for all he bought and avoiding mort¬ 
gages. Also he joined Colonel Culpepper in putting the 
College Heights upon the market. 44 For what,” explained 
the colonel, when the propriety of using the name for his 
addition was questioned, when no college was there nor 
any prospect of a college for years to come — 44 what is 
plainer to the prophetic eye than that time will bring to 
this magnificent city an institution of learning worthy of 
our hopes? I have noticed,” added the colonel, waving his 
cigar broadly about him, 44 that learning is a shy goddess; 
she has to be coaxed — hence on these empyrean heights 
we have provided for a seat of learning ; therefore College 
Heights. Look at the splendid vista, the entrancing view, 
in point of fact.” It was the large white plumes dancing 
in the colonel’s prophetic eyes. So it happened that more 
real estate buyers than clients came to the office of Ward 
and Barclay. But as the general that fall had been out 
of the office running for Congress on the Greeley ticket, 
still protesting against the crime of paying the soldiers in 
paper and the bondholders in gold, he did not miss the 
clients, and as John saw to it that there was enough law 
business to keep Mrs. Ward going, the general returned 
from the canvass overwhelmingly beaten, but not in the 
least dismayed; and as Jake Dolan put it, 44 The general 
had his say and the people had their choice—so both are 
happy.” 

As the winter deepened John and Colonel Culpepper 
planted five hundred elm trees on the campus on College 
Heights, lining three broad avenues leading from the town 
to the camous with the trees. John rode into the woods 

a. 

and picked the trees, and saw that each one was properly 
set. And the colonel noticed that the finest trees were 
on Ellen Avenue and spoke of it to Mrs. Culpepper, who 
only said, 44 Yes, pa—that’s just like him.” And the 
colonel looked puzzled. And when the colonel added, 
44 They say he is shining up to that Mason girl from 
Minneola, that comes here with Molly,” his wife returned, 
44 Yes, I expected that sooner than now.” The colonel 
gave the subject up. The ways of women were past his 


78 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


finding out. But Mrs. Culpepper had heard Jane Mason 
sing a duet in church with John Barclay, and the elder 
woman had heard in the big contralto voice of the girl 
something not meant for the preacher. And Mrs. Cul¬ 
pepper heard John answer it, so she knew what he did not 
know, what Jane Mason did not know, and what only 
Molly Culpepper suspected, and Bob Hendricks scoffed at. 

As for John, he said to Bob: “ I know why you always 
want me to go over with you and Molly to get the 
Mason girl — by cracky, I’m the only fellow in town that 
will let you and Molly have the back seat coming home 
without a fuss l No, Robbie — you don't fool your Uncle 
John.” And so when there was to be special music at the 
church, or when an) r other musical event was expected, 
John and Bob would get a two-seated buggy, and drive to 
Minneola and bring the soloist back with them. And 
there would be dances and parties, and coming from Min¬ 
neola and going back there would be much singing. “The 
fox is on the hill, I hear him calling still,” was a favour¬ 
ite, but “ Come where the lilies bloom ” rent the mid¬ 
night air between the rival towns many times that winter 
and spring of J 73. And never once did John try to get 
the back seat. But there came a time when Bob Hendricks 
told him that Molly told him that Jane had said that 
Molly and Bob were pigs — never to do any of the driving. 
And the next time there was a trip to Minneola, John said 
as the young people were seated comfortably for the re¬ 
turn trip, “ Molly, I heard you said that I was a pig to do 
all the driving, and not let you and Bob have a chance. 
Was that true?” 

“No — but do you want to know who did say it?” 
answered Molly, and Jane Mason looked straight ahead 
and cut in with, “ Molly Culpepper, if you say another 
word, I’ll never speak to you as long as I live.” But she 
glanced down at Barclay, who caught her eye and saw the 
smile she was swallowing, and he cried: “I don’t believe 
you ever said it, Molly, — it must have been some one else.” 
And when they had all had their say, — all but Jarne Mason, 
— John saw that she was crying, and the others had to 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


79 


sing for ten minutes without her, before they could coax 
away her temper. And crafty as he was, he did not know 
it was temper — he thought it was something entirely 
different. 

For the craft of youth always is clumsy. The business 
of youth is to fight and to mate. Wherever there is young 
blood, there is “ boot and horse,” and John Barclay in his 
early twenties felt in him the call for combat. It came 
with the events that were forming about him. For the 
war between the states had left the men restless and un¬ 
satisfied who had come into the plain to make their homes. 
They had heard and followed in their youth the call John 
Barclay was hearing, and after the war was over, they were 
still impatient with the obstacles they found in their paths. 
So Sycamore Ridge and Minneola, being rival towns, had 
to fight. The men who made these towns knew no better 
settlement than the settlement by force. And even dur¬ 
ing his first six months at home from school, when John 
sniffed the battle from afar, he was glad in his soul that 
the fight was coming. Sycamore Ridge had the county- 
seat ; but Minneola, having a majority of the votes in the 
county, was trying to get the county-seat, and the situa¬ 
tion grew so serious for Sycamore Ridge that General 
Hendricks felt it necessary to defeat Philemon Ward for 
the state senate so that Sycamore Ridge could get a law 
passed that would prevent Minneola’s majority from 
changing the county-seat. This was done by a law which 
Hendricks secured, giving the county commissioners the 
right to build a court-house by direct levy, without a vote 
of the people, —a court-house so large that it would settle 
the county-seat matter out of hand. 

The general, however, took no chances even with his 
commissioners. For he had his son elected as one, and with 
the knowledge that John was investing in real estate in 
the Ridge and had an eye for the main chance, the gen¬ 
eral picked John for the other commissioner. The place 
was on the firing-line of the battle, and John took it 
almost greedily. As the spring of ’73 opened, there were 
alarms and rumours of strife on every breeze, and youth 


80 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


was happy and breathed the fight into its nostrils like a 
balsam, b'or all the world of Sycamore Ridge was young 
then, and all the trees were green in the eyes of the men 
who kept up the town. Each town had its hired despera¬ 
does, and there were pickets about each village, and drills 
in the streets of the two towns, and a martial spirit all 
over the county. And as John limped about his tasks in 
those stirring spring days, lie felt that he was coming into 
his own. But it was all a curious mock combat, — that 
between the towns,—for though the pickets drilled, and the 
bad men swaggered on the streets, and the bullies roared 
their anathemas, the social relations between the towns 
were not seriously disturbed. Youths and maidens came 
from Minneola to the Ridge for parties and dances, and 
from the Ridge young men went to Minneola to weddings 
and festivals of a social nature unmolested, for it takes a 
real war — and sometimes more than that—to put a bar 
across the mating ground of youth. So Bob and Molly 
and John drove to Minneola time and again for Jane 
Mason, and other boys and girls came and went from 
town to town, while the bitterness and the bickering and 
the mimic war between the rival communities went on. 

Dolan was made sheriff, and Bemis county attorney, and 
with those two officers and a majority of the county com¬ 
missioners the Ridge had the forces of administration with 
her. And so one night Minneola came with her wrinkled 
front of war; viz., forty fighting men under Gabriel Carnine 
and an ox team, prepared to take the county records by 
force and haul them home by main strength. But Lycur- 
gus Mason, whose wife had locked him in the cellar that 
night to keep him from danger, was the cackling goose 
that saved Rome; for when, having escaped his wife’s vigi¬ 
lance, he came riding down the wind from Minneola to 
catch up with his fellow-townsmen, his clatter aroused the 
men of the Ridge, and they hurried to the court-house and 
greeted the invaders with half a thousand armed men in 
the court-house yard. And in a crisis where craft and 
cunning would not help him, courage came out of John 
Barclay’s soul for the first time and into his life as he 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


81 


limped through the guns into the open to explain to the 
men from Minneola when they finally arrived that Lycurgus 
Mason had not betrayed them, but had rushed into the 
town, thinking his friends were there ahead of him. It 
was a plucky thing for John to do, considering that his 
death would stop the making of the levy for the court¬ 
house that was to be recorded in a few days. But the 
young man’s blood tingled with joy as he jumped the 
court-house fence and went back to his men. There was 
something like a smile from Jane Mason in his joy, but 
chiefly it was the joy that youth has in daring, that thrilled 
him. And the next day, or perhaps it was the next, — at 
any rate, it was a Sunday late in Jane, — when an armed 
posse from Minneola came charging down on the town at 
noon, John ran from his office unseen, over the roofs of 
buildings upon which as a boy he had romped, and ducking 
through a second-story window in Frye’s store, got two 
kegs of powder, ran out of the back door, under the ex¬ 
posed piling supporting the building, put the two kegs of 
powder in a wooden culvert under the ammunition wagons 
of the Minneola men, who were battling with the town in 
the street, and taking a long fuse in his teeth, crawled 
back to the alley, lit the fuse, and ran into the street to 
look into the revolver of J. Lord Lee —late of the Red 
Legs —and warn him to run or be blown up with the 
wagons. And when the explosion came, knocking him 
senseless, he woke up a hero, with the town bending over 
him, and Minneola’s forces gone. 

And so John and the town had their fling together. 
And we who sit among our books or by our fire — or if 
not that by our iron radiator exuding its pleasance and com¬ 
fort— should not sniff at that day when blood pulsed quicker, 
and joy was keener, and life was more vivid than it is 
to-day. 

Thirty-five years later — in August, 1908, to be exact — 
the general, in his late seventies, sat in McHurdie’s harness 
shop while the poet worked at his bench. On the floor 
beside the general was the historical edition of the Syca¬ 
more Ridge Banner — rather an elaborate affair, printed on 


G 


82 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


glossy paper and bedecked with many photogravures of 
old scenes and old faces. A page of the paper was devoted 
to the County Seat War of ’78. The general had furnished 
the material for most of the article, —though he would not 
do the writing, — and he held the sheet with the story upon 
it in his hand. As he read it in the light of that later 
day, it seemed a sordid story of chicanery and violence — 
the sort of an episode that one would expect to find follow¬ 
ing a great war. The general read and reread the old 
story of the defeat of Minneola, and folded his paper and 
rolled it into a wand with which he conjured up his spirit 
of philosophy. “ Heigh-ho,” he sighed. “ We don’t know 
much, do we ? ” 

McHurdie made no reply. He bent closely over his 
work, and the general went on: “ I was mighty mad when 
Hendricks defeated me for the state senate in ’72, just to 
get that law passed cheating Minneola out of a fair vote 
on the court-house question. But it’s come out all right.” 

The harness maker sewed on, and the general reflected. 
Finally the little man at the bench turned his big dimmed 
eyes on his visitor, and asked, u Did you think, General, 
that you knew more than the Lord about making things 
come out right?” There was no reply and McHurdie 
continued, “Well, you don’t — I’ve got that settled in 
my mind.” 

There was silence for a time, and Ward kept beating his 
leg with the paper wand in his hand. “ Watts,” said the 
general, finally, “ I know what it was — it was youth. 
John Barclay had to go through that period. Fie had to 
fight and wrangle and grapple with life as he did. Do 
you remember that night the Minneola ^eilows came up 
with their ox team and their band ot killers to take the 
county records — ” and there was more of it — the old 
story of the town’s wild days that need not be recorded, 
and in the end, in answer to some query from the general 
on John’s courage, Watts replied, “ John was always a bold 
little fice — he never lacked brass.” 

“ Was he going with Jane Mason then, Watts, — I for¬ 
get ? ” queried the general. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


83 


“Yes — yes,” replied McHurdie. “Don’t you remem¬ 
ber that very next night she sang in the choir — well, John 
had brought her over from Minneola two days before, and 
that Sunday when the little devil went in the culvert across 
Main Street and blew up the Minneola wagons, Jane was in 
town that day — I remember that; and man — man — I 
heard her voice say things to him in the duet that night 
that she would have been ashamed to put in words.” 

The two old men were silent. “That was youth, too, 
Watts,—fighting and loving, and loving and fighting,—* 
that’s youth,” sighed the general. 

“ Well, Johnnie got his belly full of it in his day, as old 
Shakespeare says, Phil — and in your day you had yours, 
too. Every dog, General — every dog — you know. ” The 
two voices were silent, as two old men looked back through 
the years. 

McHurdie put the strap he was working upon in the 
water, and turned with his spectacles in his hands to his 
comrade. “Maybe it’s this way: with a man, it’s fighting 
and loving before we get any sense; and with a town it’s 
the same way, and I guess with the race it’s the same way 
— fighting and loving and growing sensible after it’s over. 
Maybe so — maybe so, Phil, comrade, but man, man,” ha 
said as he climbed on his bench, “ it’s fine to be a fool I ” 


CHAPTER VII 


In Sycamore Ridge every one knows Watts MeHurdie, 
and every one takes pride in the fact that far and wide the 
Ridge is known as Watts McHurdie’s town, and this too in 
spite of the fact that from Sycamore Ridge Bob Hendricks 
gained his national reputation as a reformer and the fur¬ 
ther fact that when the Barclays went to New York or 
Chicago or to California for the winter in their private car, 
they always registered from Sycamore Ridge at the great 
hotels. One would think that the town would be known 
more as Hendricks’ town or Barclay’s town ; but no — 
nothing of the kind has happened, and when the rich and 
the great go forth from the Ridge, people say: “ Oh, yes, 
Sycamore Ridge — that’s Watts McHurdie’s town, who 
wrote — ” but people from the Ridge let the inquirers get 
no farther ; they say: “Exactly — it’s Watts McHurdie’s 
town — and you ought to see him ride in the open hack 
with the proprietor of a circus when it comes to the Ridge 
and all the bands and the calliope are playing Watts’song. 
The way the people cheer shows that it is really Watts 
McHurdie’s town.” So when Colonel Martin Culpepper 
wrote the “ Biography of Watts MeHurdie ” which was 
published together with McHurdie’s “Complete Poetical 
and Philosophical Works,” there was naturally much dis¬ 
cussion, and the town was more or less divided as to what 
part of the book was the best. But the old settlers, — 
those who, during the drouth of ’60, ate mince pies with 
pumpkins as the fruit and rabbit meat as the filling and 
New Orleans black-strap as the sweetening, the old set¬ 
tlers who knew Watts before he became famous, — they 
like best of all the chapters in the colonel’s Biography the 
one entitled “At Hymen’s Altar.” And here is a curious 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


85 


thing about it: in that chapter there is really less of Watts 
and considerably more of Colonel Martin Culpepper than 
in any other chapter. 

But the newcomers, those who came in the prosperous 
days of the 70’s or 80’s, never could understand the par¬ 
tiality of the old settlers for the “Hymen’s Altar” chapter. 
Lycurgus Mason also always took the view that the 
44 Hymen ” chapter was drivel. 

44 Now, John, be sensible —” Lycurgus insisted one night 
in 1908 when the two were eating supper in Barclay’s 
private car on a side-track in Arizona; “don’t be like my 
wife — she always drools over that chapter, too. But 
3 r ou know my wife—” Lycurgus always referred to Mrs. 
Mason with a grand gesture as to his dog or his horse, 
which were especially desirable chattels. “ My wife, —• 
it’s just like a woman, — she sits and reads that, and laughs 
and weeps, and giggles and sniffs, and I say, 4 What’s the 
matter with you, anyway ? 

John Barclay pushed a button. To the porter he said, 
44 Bring me that little red book in my satchel.” The book 
had been published but a few weeks, and John always 
carried a copy around with him in those days to give to a 
friend. When the porter brought the book, Barclay read 
aloud, “ Ah, truly hath the poet said, 4 Marriages are made 
in heaven.’ ” 

But Lycurgus Mason pulled his napkin from under his 
chin and moved back from the table, dusting the crumbs 
from his obviously Sunday clothes. “There you go—- 
that’s it; 4 as the poet says.’ John, if you heard that 4 as the 
poet says ’ as often as I do —” He could not finish the fig¬ 
ure. But he sniffed out his disgust with 44 as the poet says.” 
44 It wasn’t so bad when we were in the hotel, and she w*as 
busy with something else. But now —but now r — ” he 
repeated it the third time, 44 but now — honest, every time 
that woman goes to get up a paper for the Hypatia Club, 
she gets me in the parlour, and rehearses it to me, and the 
dad-binged thing is simply packed full of 4 as the poet 
sayses.’ And about that marriages being made in 
heaven, I tell my wife this: I say, 4 Maybe so, but if 


86 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


they are, I know one that was made on a busy day when 
the angels were thinking of something else.’ ” 

And John Barclay, who knew Mrs. Mason and knew 
Lycurgus, knew that he would as soon think of throwing 
a bomb at the President as to say such a thing to her; so 
John asked credulously : “You did ? Well, well ! Say, 
what did she say to that ? ” 

“That’s it—” responded Lycurgus. “That’s it. What 
could she say? I had her.” He walkea the length of 
the room proudly, with his hands thrust into his pockets. 

Barclay moved his chair to the rear of the car, where he 
sat smoking and looking into the clear star-lit heavens 
above the desert. And his mind went back thirty years 
to the twilight in June after he had set off the powder 
keg in the culvert under Main Street in Sycamore Ridge, 
and he tried to remember how Jane Mason got over from 
Minneola — did he bring her over the day before, or was 
she visiting at the Culpeppers’, or did she come over 
that day ? It puzzled him, but he remembered well that 
in the Congregational choir he and Jane sang a duet in an 
anthem, “ He givetli his beloved sleep.” And he hummed 
the old aria, a rather melancholy tune, as he sat on the car 
platform in Arizona that night, and her voice came back 
— a deep sweet contralto that took “ G ” below middle “ C ” 
as clearly as a tenor, and in her lower register there was a 
passion and a fire that did not blaze in the higher notes. 
For those notes were merely girlish and untrained. That 
June night in ’73 was the first night that he and Jane 
Mason ever had lagged behind as they walked up the hill 
with Bob and Molly. And what curious things stick in 
the memory ! The man on the rear of the car remembered 
that as they left the business part of Main Street behind 
and walked up the hill, they came to a narrow cross-walk, 
a single stone in width, and that they tried to walk upon 
it together, and that his limp made him jostle her, and 
she said, “ We mustn’t do that.” 

“ What? ” he inquired. 

“Oh — you know — walk on one stone. You know 
what it’s a sign of. ” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


87 


“ Do you believe in signs?” lie asked. She kept hold of 
his aim, and kept him from leaving the stone. She was 
taller than he by a head, and he hated himself for it. 
They managed to keep together until they crossed the 
street and came into the broader walk. Then she drew a 
relieved breath and answered: 44 Oh, I don’t know. Some¬ 
times I do.” They were lagging far behind their friends, 
and the girl hummed a tune, then she said, 44 You know 
I’ve always believed in my 4 Star light — star bright— first 
star I’ve seen to-night,’ just as I believe in my prayers.” 
And she looked up and said, 44 Oh, I haven’t said it yet.” 
She picked out her star and said the rhyme, closing with, 
44 1 wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish to * 
night.” 

And sitting on the car end in Arizona thirty years 
after,he tried to find her star in the firmament above him. 
He was a man in his fifties then, and the night she showed 
him her star was more than thirty years gone by. But he 
remembered. We are curious creatures, we men, and we 
remember much more than we pretend to. For our mothers 
in many cases were women, and we take after them. 

As Barclay stood in the door of his car debating whether 
or not to go in, the light from the chimney of the sawmill 
on the hill attracted his attention, and because he was in 
a mood for it, the flying sparks trailing across the night 
sky reminded him of the fireworks that Fourth of July in 
1873, when he and Jane Mason and Bob and Molly spent 
the day together, picnicking down in the timber and coming 
home to dance on the platform under the cottonwood-bough 
pavilion in the evening. It was a riotous day, and Bob and 
Molly being lovers of long acceptance assumed a paternal 
attitude to John and Jane that was charming in the main, 
but sometimes embarrassing. And of all the chatter he 
only remembered that Jane said : 44 Think how many years 
these old woods have been here—how many hundred 
years — maybe when the mound-builders were here ! Don’t 
you suppose that they are used to — to young people — 
oh, maybe Indian lovers, and all that, and don’t you sup* 
pose the trees see these young people loving and marrying t 


88 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and growing old and ugly and unhappy, and that they 
some way feel that the}" are just a little tired of it all?’ 

If any one replied to her, he had no recollection of it, 
for after that he saw the dance and heard the music, and 
then events seemed to slip along without registering in 
his memory. There must have been the fifth and the 
sixth of July in 1873, for certainly there was the seventh, 
and that was Sunday; he remembered that well enough, 
for in the morning there was a council in his office to 
discuss ways and means for the week’s work in the 
county-seat trouble. Tuesday was the day which the new 
law designated as the one when the levy must be made 
for the court-house improvements that would hold the 
county-seat in Sycamore Ridge. At four o’clock, after the 
Sunday council, John and Bob drove out of Sheriff Jake 
Dolan’s stable with his best two-seated buggy, and told 
him they would be back from Minneola at midnight or 
thereabout after taking Jane Mason home, and the two 
boys drove down Main Street with the girls, waving to 
every one with their hats, while the girls waved their 
parasols, and the town smiled ; for though all the world 
loves a lover, in Sycamore Ridge it has been the custom, 
since the days when Philemon Ward first took Miss Lucy 
out to drive, for all the town to jeer at lovers as they pass 
down street in buggies and carriages ! And so thirty 
years slipped from Barclay as he stood in the doorway of 
his car looking at the Arizona stars. A flicker of light 
high up in the sky-line seemed to move. It was the head¬ 
light of a train coming over the mountain. A switchman 
with a lantern was passing near the car, and Barclay called 
to him, “Is that headlight No. 2?” And when the man 
affirmed Barclay’s theory, he asked, 44 How long does it 
take it to get down here ? ” 

44 Oh, she comes a-humming,” replied the man. 44 If she 
doesn’t jump the track, she’ll be down in eight minutes.” 

Inside the car Barclay heard a watch snap, and knew 
that Lycurgus Mason didn’t believe anything of the kind 
and proposed to get at the facts. So Barclay sat down on 
the platform ; but his mind went back to the old days, and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


89 


the ride through the woods along the Sycamore that Sun¬ 
day night in July came to him, with all its fragrance and 
stillness and sweetness. He recalled that they came into 
the prairie just as the meadow-lark was crying its last 
plaintive twilight trill, and the western sky was glowing 
with a rim of gold upon the tips of the clouds. The 
beauty of the prairie and the sky and the calm of the even¬ 
ing entered into their hearts, and they were silent. Then 
they left the prairie and went into the woods again, op 
the river road. And before they came out of that roa^ 
into the upland. Fate Ruined a screw that changed the 
lives of all of them. For in a turn of the road, in a deep 
cut made by a ravine, Gabriel Carnine, making the last 
stand for Minneola, stepped into the path and took the 
horses by the bridles. The shock that John felt that 
night when he realized what had happened came back 
even across the years. And as the headlight far up in 
the mountain above the desert slipped into a tunnel, 
though it flashed out again in a few seconds, while it was 
gone, all the details of the kidnapping of the young people 
in the buggy hurried across his mind. Even the old anxi¬ 
ety that he felt lest Sycamore Ridge would think him a 
traitor to their cause, when they should find that he was 
not there to sign the tax levy and save the court-house 
and the county-seat, came back to him as he gazed at 
the mountain, waiting for the headlight, and he remem¬ 
bered how he made a paper trail of torn bits from a Con¬ 
gregational hymn-book, left in Bob’s pocket from the 
morning service, dropping the bits under the buggy wheels 
in the dust so that the men from the Ridge would see the 
trail and follow the captives. In his memory he saw 
Jake Dolan, who had followed the trail where it led to 
Carnine’s farm, come stumbling into the farm-house Tues¬ 
day where they were hidden, and John, in memory, heard 
Jake whisper that he had left his dog with the rescuing 
party to lead the rescuers to him if he was on the right 
trail and did not return. 

And then as Barclay’s mind went back to the long 
Tuesday, when he should have been at the Ridge to sign 


90 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


the tax levy, the headlight flashed out of the tunnel. But 
these were fading pictures. The one image that was in 
his mind — clear through all the years—was of a wood and 
a tree,— a great, spreading, low-boughed elm, near Car- 
nine’s house where the young people were held prisoners, 
and Jane Mason sitting with her back against the tree, and 
lying on the dry grass at her feet his own slight figure ; 
sometimes he was looking up at her over his brow, and 
sometimes his head rested on the roots of the tree beside 
her, and she looked down at him and they talked, and no 
one was near. For through youth into middle life, and 
into the dawn of old age, That Day was marked in his life. 
The day of the month — he forgot which it was. The day 
of the week—that also left him, and there came a time 
when he had to figure back to recall the year; but for all 
that, there was a radiance in his life, an hour of calm joy 
that never left him, and he called it only — That Day. 
That Day is in every heart; in yours, my dear fat Mr. 
Jones, and in yours, my good dried-up Mrs. Smith; and 
in yours, Mrs. Goodman, and in yours, Mr. Badman; 
maybe it is upon the sea, or in the woods, or among the 
noises of some great city -- but it is That Day. And no 
other day of all the thousands that have come to you is 
like it. 

Why should he remember the ugly farm-yard, the hard 
faces of the men, the straw-covered frame they called a 
barn, and the unpainted house ? All these things passed 
by him unrecorded, as did the miserable fare of the table, 
the hard bed at night, and the worry that must have 
gnawed at his nerves to know that perhaps the town was 
thinking him false to it, or that his mother, guessing the 
truth, was in pain with terror, or to feel that a rescuing 
party coming at the wrong time would bring on a fight 
in which the girls would be killed. Only the picture of 
Jane Mason, fine and lithe and strong, with the pink 
cheeks of twenty, and the soft curves of childhood still 
playing about her chin and throat as he saw it from the 
ground at her feet,—that picture was etched into his 
.heart, and with it the recollection of her eyes when she 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


91 


said, “ John, — you don’t think I — I knew of this — be¬ 
forehand, do you ? ” Just that sentence — those were the 
only words left in his memory of a day’s happiness. And 
he never heard a locust whirring in a tree that it did not 
bring back the memory of the spreading tree and the touch 

— the soft, quick, shy touch of her fingers in his hair, and 
the fire that was in her eyes. 

It was in the dusk of Tuesday evening that Jake Dolan’s 
dog came into the yard where the captives were, and Jake 
disowned him, and joined the men who stoned the faithful 
creature out to the main road. But the prisoners knew 
that their rescuers would follow the dog, so at supper the 
th^ee men from the Ridge sat together on a bench at the 
table while Mrs. Carnine and the girls waited on the men 

— after the fashion of country places in those days. 
Dolan managed to say under his breath to Barclay, “ It’s 
all right — but the girls must stay in the house to-night.” 
And John knew that if he and Bob escaped with horses 
before ten o’clock, they could reach the Ridge in time to 
sign the levy before midnight. Darkness fell at eight, 
and a screech-owl in the wood complained to the night. 
Dolan rose and stretched and yawned, and then began to 
talk of going to bed, and Gabriel Carnine, whose turn it 
was to sleep because he had been up two nights, shuffled 
off to the straw-covered stable to lie down with the Texan 
who was his bunk mate, leaving half a dozen men to guard 
the prisoners. An hour later the screech-owl in the wood 
murmured again, this time much closer, and Dolan rose and 
took off his hat and threw it in the straw beside him. He 
was looking at the time anxiously toward the wood. But 
the next moment from behind the barn in the opposite 
direction something attracted them. It was a glare of 
light, and the guards noticed it at the same time. A last 
year’s straw stack next to the barn was afire. Jane Mason 
was standing in the back door of the house, and in the 
hurried blur of moving events John divined that she had 
slipped out and fired the stack. In an instant there was 
confusion. The men were on their feet. They must fight 
fire, or the barn would go. Dolan ran with the men to the 


92 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


straw stack. “We’ll help you,” he cried. “I’ll wake 
Gabe.” There was hurrying for water pails. The women 
appeared, crying shrilly, and in the glare that reddened 
the sky the yard seemed full of mad men racing heedlessly. 

“John,” whispered Jane, coming up to him as he drew 
water from the well, “let me do this. There are two 
horses in the pasture. You and Bob go — fly — fly.” 
The Texan came running from the barn, which was begin¬ 
ning to blaze. Dolan and Carnine still were in it. Then 
from the wood back of the camp fifty men appeared, riding 
at a gallop. Inge Bemis and General Ward rode in front 
of the troop of horsemen. Carnine was still in the burn¬ 
ing barn asleep, and there was no leader to give command 
to the dazed guards. Ward and Bemis ran up, motioning 
the men back, and Ward cried, “ Shall we help you save 
your stock and barn, or must we fight ? ” It was addressed 
to the crowd, but before they could answer, Dolan 
stumbled out of the barn through the smoke and flames 
crying, “ Boys,— boys, — I can’t find him.” He saw the 
rescuing party and shouted, “ Boys, — Gabe’s in there 
asleep and I can’t find him.” The wind had suddenly 
veered, and the crackling flames had reached the straw 
roof of the barn. The tire was gaining headway, and the 
three buckets that were coming from the well had no 
effect on it. As the last horse was pulled out of the door, 
one side of the straw wall of the barn fell away on fire and 
showed Gabriel Carnine sleeping not ten feet from the 
flames. Lige Bemis soused his handkerchief in water, tied 
it over his mouth, and ran in. He grabbed the sleeping 
man and dragged him through the flames; but both were 
afire as they came into the open. 

Now in this story Elijah Westlake Bemis is not shown 
often in a heroic light. Yet he had in his being the 
making of a hero, for he was brave. And heroism, after 
all, is only effective reliance on some virtue in a crisis, in 
spite of temptations to do the easy excusable thing. And 
when Lige Bemis sneaks through this story in unlovely 
guise, remember that he has a virtue that once exalted 
even him. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


93 


“Gabe Carnine,” said Ward, as the barn fell and there 
was nothing more to fear, “ we didn’t fire your haystack; 
I give you my word on that. But we are going to take 
these boys home now. And you better let us alone.” 

That John Barclay remembered, and then he remem¬ 
bered being in the front yard of the farm-house a moment 
— alone with Jane Mason, his bridle rein over his arm. 
Her hair was down, and she looked wild and beautiful. 
The straw was still burning back of the house, and the 
glow was everywhere. He always remembered that she 
held his hand and would not let him go, and there two 
memories are different; for she always maintained that he 
did, right there and then, and he recollected that as he 
mounted his horse he tried to kiss her and failed. Per¬ 
haps both are right — who knows? But both agree that 
as he sat there an instant on his horse, she threw kisses at 
him and he threw them back. And when the men rode 
away, she stood in the road, and he could see her in the 
light of the waning fire, and thirty years passed and still 
he saw her. 

As the headlight of the train lit up the cinder yard, 
and brought the glint of the rails out of the darkness, 
John Barclay, a thousand miles away and thirty years 
after, fancied he could see her there in the railroad yards 
beside him waving her hands at him, smiling at him with 
the new-found joy in her face. For there is no difference 
between fifty-three and twenty-three when men are in 
love, and if they are in love with the same woman in both 
years, her face will never change, her smile will always 
seem the same. And to John Barclay there on the rear 
platform of the car, with the crash of the great train in 
his ears, the same face looked out of the night at him that 
he saw back in his twenties, and he knew that the same 
prayer to the same God would go up that night for him 
that went up from the same lips so long ago. The man 
on the car platform rose from his chair, and went into the 
car. 

“Well,” he said to Lycurgus Mason as the old man 
reached for his watch, “ how about it ? ” 


94 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Lycurgus replied as he put it back in his pocket, “ Just 
seven minutes and a half. She’s covered a lot of track in 
those seven minutes ! ” 

And John Barclay looked back over the years, and saw 
a boy riding like the wind through the night, changing 
horses every half-hour, and trying to tell time from his 
watch by a rising moon, but the moon was blown with 
clouds like a woman’s hair, and he could not see the hands 
on the watch face. So as he looked at the old man sit¬ 
ting crooked over in the great leather chair, John Barclay 
only grunted, “Yes — she’s covered a long stretch of 
country in those seven minutes.” And he picked the 
Biography off the table and read to himself: “I some¬ 
times think that only that part of the soul that loves is 
saved. The rest is dross and perishes in the fire. Whether 
the love be the love of woman or the love of kind, or the 
love of God that embraces all, it matters not. That sanc¬ 
tifies ; that purifies — that marks the way of the only sal¬ 
vation the soul can know, and he who does not love with 
the fervour of a passionate heart some of God’s creatures, 
cannot love God, and not loving Him, is lost in spite of all 
his prayers, in spite of all his aspirations. Therefore, if 
you would live you must love, for when love dies the soul 
shrivels. And if God takes what you love — love on ; for 
only love will make you immortal, only love will cheat 
death of its victory.” 

And looking at Lycurgus Mason fidgeting in his chair, 
John Barclay wondered when he would die the kind of a 
death that had come to the little old man before him, and 
then he felt the car move under him, and knew they were 
going back to Sycamore Ridge. 

“ Day after to-morrow,” said Barclay, meditatively, as he 
heard the first faint screaming of the heavily laden wheels 
under him, “ day after to-morrow, Daddy Mason, we will 
be home with Colonel Culpepper and his large white 
plumes.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


This chapter might have had in it “ all the quality, 
pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ” if it had 
not been for the matters that came up for discussion at 
the meeting of the Garrison County Old Settlers’ Associa¬ 
tion this year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eight. 
For until that meeting the legend of the last hour of the 
County-seat War of ’73 had flourished unmolested; but 
there General Philemon Ward rose and laid an axe at the 
root of the legend, and while of course he did not destroy 
it entirely, he left it scarred and withered on one side and 
therefore entirely unfitted for historical purposes. It 
seems that Gabriel Carnine was assigned by President 
John Barclay of the Association to prepare and read a paper 
on “ The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Minneola.” Certainly 
that was a proper subject considering the fact that corn 
has been growing over the site of Minneola for twenty 
years. And surely Gabriel Carnine, whose black beard 
has whitened in thirty years’ faithful service to Sycamore 
Ridge, whose wife lies buried on the Hill, and whose chil¬ 
dren read the Sycamore Ridge Banner in the uttermost 
parts of the earth, — surely Gabriel Carnine might have 
been trusted to tell the truth of the conflict waged be¬ 
tween the towns a generation ago. But men have curi¬ 
ous works in them, and unless one has that faith in God 
that gives him unbounded faith in the goodness of man, 
one should not open men up in the back and watch the 
wheels go ’round. For though men are good, and in the 
long run what they do is God’s work and is therefore ac¬ 
ceptable, no man is perfect. There goes Lige Bemis past 
the post-office, now, for instance ; when he was in the legis¬ 
lature in the late sixties, every one knows that Minneola 
raised twenty thousand dollars in cash and offered it to 
Lige if he would pretend to be sick and quit work on the 

95 


96 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Sycamore Ridge county-seat bill. He could have fooled 
us, and could have taken the money, which was certainly 
more than he could expect to get from Sycamore Ridge. 
Did he take it? Not at all. A million would not have 
tempted him. lie was in that game; yet ten days after 
he refused the offer of Minneola, he tried to blackmail his 
United States senator out of fifty dollars, and sold his vote 
to a candidate for state printer for one hundred dollars and 
flashed the bill around Sycamore Ridge proudly for a week 
before spending it. 

So Gabriel Carnine must not be blamed if in that paper 
on Minneola, before the Old Settlers’ Association, he let 
out the pent-up wrath of thirty years; and also if in the 
discussion General Ward unsealed his lips for the first 
time and blighted the myth that told how a hundred Min¬ 
neola men had captured the court-house yard on the night 
that John Barclay and Bob Hendricks rode home from their 
captivity to sign the tax levy. Legend has always said 
that Lige Bern is, riding half a mile ahead of the others that 
night, came to the courtyard; found it guarded by Min¬ 
neola men, rode back, met John and Bob and the general 
crossing the bridge over the old ford of the Sycamore, and 
told them that they could not get into the court-house until 
the men came up who had ridden out to rescue the com¬ 
missioners,— perhaps a quarter of an hour behind the 
others, — and that even then there must be a fight of 
doubtful issue ; and further that it was after eleven o’clock, 
and soon would be too late to sign the levy. The forty 
thousand people in Garrison County have believed for 
thirty years that finding the court-house yard in posses¬ 
sion of the enemy, Bemis suggested going through the 
cave by the Barclays’ home, which had its west opening in 
the wall of the basement of the court-house; and further¬ 
more, tradition has said that Bemis led John and Bob 
through the cave, and with crowbars and hammers they 
made a man-sized hole in the wall, crawled through it, 
mounted the basement stairs, unlocked the commissioners’ 
room, held their meeting in darkness, and five minutes 
before twelve o’clock astonished the invading forces by 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


97 


lighting a lamp in their room, signing the levy that Bemis, 
as county attorney, had prepared the Sunday before, and 
slipping with it into the basement, through the cave and 
back to the troop of horsemen us they were jogging 
across the bridge on their way back from Carnine’s farm. 
And here are the marks of General Ward’s axe — 
verified by Gabriel Carnine : first, that there were no 
Minneola invaders in possession of the court-house, but 
only a dozen visitors loafing about town that night to 
watch developments ; second, that the regular pickets were 
out as usual, and an invading force could not have stolen 
in; and third, that Bemis knew it, but as his political for¬ 
tunes were low, he rode ahead of the others, hatched up 
the cock-and-bull story about the guarded court-house, 
and persuaded the boys to let him lead them into a roman¬ 
tic adventure that would sound well in the campaign and 
help to insure his reflection the following year. In view 
of the general’s remarks and Gabriel Carnine’s corrobora¬ 
tive statement, and in view of the bitterness with which 
Carnine assailed the whole Sycamore Ridge campaign, how 
can a truthful chronicler use the episode at all? History 
is a fickle goddess, and perhaps Pontius Pilate, being 
human and used to human errors and human weakness, 
is not so much to blame for asking, 44 What is truth?” and 
then turning away before he had the answer. 

Walking home from the meeting through Mary Barclay 
Park, Barclay’s mind wandered back to the days when he 
won his first important lawsuit — the suit brought by Min¬ 
neola to prevent the collection of taxes under the midnight 
levy to build the court-house. It was that lawsuit which 
brought him to the attention of the legal department of the 
Fifth Parallel Railroad Company, and his employment by 
that company to defeat the bonds of its narrow-gauged com¬ 
petitor, that was seeking entrance into Garrison County, 
was the beginning of his career. And in that fight to 
defeat the narrow-gauged railroad, the people of Garrison 
County learned something of Barclay as well. He and 
Bemis went over the county together,—the little fox and 
the old coyote, the people called them, — and where men 


98 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


were for sale, Bemis bought them, and where they were 
timid, John threatened them, and where they were neither, 
both John and Bemis fought with a ferocity that made 
men hate but respect the pair. And so though the Fifth 
Parallel Railroad never came to the Ridge, its successor, 
the Corn Belt Road, did come, and in ’74 John spoke in 
every schoolhouse in the county, urging the people to vote 
the bonds for the Corn Belt Road, and his employment as 
local attorney for the company marked his first step into 
the field of state politics. For it gave him a railroad pass, 
and brought him into relations with the men who manipu¬ 
lated state affairs; also it made him a silent partner of Lige 
Bemis in Garrison County politics. 

But even when he was county commissioner, less than 
two dozen years old, he was a force in Sycamore Ridge, 
and there were days when he had four or five thousand 
dollars to his credit in General Hendricks’ bank. The 
general used to look over the daily balances and stroke 
his iron-gray beard and say: “Robert, John is doing 
well to-day. Son, I wish you had the acquisitive faculty. 
Why don’t you invest something and make something?” 
But Bob Hendricks was content to do his work in the 
bank, and read at home one night and slip over to the Cul¬ 
peppers’ the next night, and so long as the boy was steady 
and industrious and careful, his father had no real cause 
for complaint, and he knew it. But the town knew that 
John was getting on in the world. He owned half of 
Culpepper’s second addition, and his interest in College 
Heights was clear; he never dealt in equities, but paid 
cash and gave warranty deeds for what he sold. It was 
believed around the Ridge that he could “ clean up,” for 
fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, and when he called 
Mrs. Mason of the Mason House, Minneola, into the dining 
room one afternoon to talk over a little matter with her, 
he found her most willing. It was a short session. After 
listening and punctuating his remarks with “ of courses ” 
and “ yeses ” and “ so’s,” Mrs. Mason’s reply was : — 

“ Of course, Mr. Barclay,”—the Mr. Barclay he remem* 
bered as the only time in liis life he ever had it from her, — 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


99 


44 of course, Mr. Barclay, that is a matter rather for you 
and Mr. Mason to settle. You know,” she added, folding 
her hands across her ample waist, 44 Mr. Mason is the head 
of the house ! ” Then she lifted her voice, perhaps fear¬ 
ing that matters might be delayed. 44 Oh, pa! ” she 
cried. 44 Pa! Come in here, please. There’s a gentle¬ 
man to see you.” 

Lycurgus Mason came in with a tea towel in his hands 
and an apron on. He heard John through in a dazed 
way, his hollow eyes blinking with evident uncertainty as 
to what was expected of him. When Barclay was through, 
the father looked at the mother for his cue, and did not 
speak for a moment. Then he faltered: 44 Why, yes, — yes, 
— I see ! Well, raa, what — ” And at the cloud on her 
brow Lycurgus hesitated again, and rolled his apron about 
his hands nervously and finally said, 44 Oh — well — what¬ 
ever you and her ma think will be all right with me, I 
guess.” And having been dismissed telepathically, Lycur¬ 
gus hurried back to his work. 

It was when John Barclay was elected President of the 
Corn Belt Railway, in the early nineties, that Lycurgus 
told McITurdie and Ward and Culpepper and Frye, as the 
graybeards wagged around the big brown stove in the 
harness shop one winter day: 44 You know ma, she never 
saw much in him, and when I came in the room she was 
about to tell him he couldn’t have her. Now, isn’t that 
like a woman ? — no sense about men. But I says: 4 Ma, 
John Barclay’s got good blood in him. His grandpa died 
worth a million, — and that was a pile of money for them 
days; ’ so I says, 4 If Jane Mason wants him, ma,’ I says, 
4 let her have him. Remember what a fuss your folks 
made over me getting you,’ 1 says; ‘and see how it’s 
turned out.’ Then I turned to John — I can see the 
little chap now a-standing there with his dicky hat in his 
hand and his pipe-stem legs no bigger than his cane, and 
his gray eyes lookin’ as wistful as a dog’s when you got a 
bone in }mur hand, and I says, 4 Take her along, John; 
take her along and good luck go with you,’ I says; ‘but,’ 
I says, 4 John Barclay, I want you always to remember 



» > •> 


100 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Jane Mason has got a father.’ Just that way I says. I 
tell you, gentlemen, there’s nothing like having a wife that 
respects you.” The crowd in the harness shop wagged 
their heads, and Lycurgus went on: “ Now, they ain’t many 
women that would just let a man stand up like that and, 
as you may say, give her daughter right away under her 
nose. But my wife, she’s been well trained.” 

In the pause that followed, Watts McHurdie’s creaking 
lever was the only sound that broke the silence. Then 
Watts, who had been sewing away at his work with wav¬ 
ing arms, spoke, after clearing his throat, “I’ve heard 
many say that she was sich.” And the old man cackled, 
and it became a saying among them and in the town. 

One who goes back over the fifty years that have passed 
since Sycamore Ridge became a local habitation and a 
name finds it difficult to realize that one-third of its life 
was passed before the panic of ’73, which closed the Hen¬ 
dricks’ bank. For those first nineteen years passed as the 
life of a child passes, so that they seem only sketched in; 
yet to those who lived at all, to those like Watts McHur- 
die and Philemon Ward, who now pass their happiest mo¬ 
ments mooning over tilted headstones in the cemetery on 
the Hill, those first nineteen years seem the longest and the 
best. And that fateful year of ’73 to them seems the most 
portentous. For then, perhaps for the first time, they 
realized the cruel uncertainty of the struggle for exist¬ 
ence. With the terrible drouth of ’60 this realization did 
not come; for the town was young, and the people were 
young; only Ezra Lane was a graybeard in all the town 
in the sixties; and youth is so sure; there is no hazard 
under thirty. In the war they fought and marched and 
sang and starved and died, and were still young. But 
when the financial panic of ’73 spread its dread and its 
trouble over the land, youth in Sycamore Ridge was gone ; 
it was manhood that faced these things in the Ridge, and 
manhood had cares, had given hostages to fortune, and life 
was serious and hard; and big on the horizon was the fear 
of failure. General Hendricks swayed in the panic of ’73 ; 
and the time marked him, took the best of the light from 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


101 


his eye, and put the slightest perceptible hobble on his feet. 
To Martin Culpepper and Watts Mctlurdie and Philemon 
Ward and Jacob Dolan and Oscar Fernald, the panic 
came in their late thirties and early forties, a flash of 
lightning that prophesied the coming of the storm and 
stress of an inexorable fate. 

The wedding of John Barclay and Jane Mason occurred 
in September, 1873, two days after he had stood on the 
high stone steps of the Exchange National Bank and 
made a speech to the crowd, telling them he was the 
largest depositor in the bank, and begging them to stop 
the run. But the run did not stop, and the day before 
John’s wedding the bank did not open; the short crop 
and the panic in the East were more than Garrison County 
people could stand. But all the first day of the bank’s 
closing and all the next day John worked among the 
people, reassuring them. So that it was five o’clock in 
the evening before he could start to Minneola for his 
wedding, 

And such a wedding ! One would say that when hard 
times were staring every one in the face, social forms 
would be observed most simply. But one would say so 
without reckoning with Mrs. Lycurgus Mason. As the 
groom and the bridesmaid and best man rode up from 
Sycamore Valley, two miles from Minneola, in the early 
falling dusk that night, the Mason House loomed through 
the darkness, lighted up like a steamboat. 44 You’ll have 
to move along, John,” said Bob Hendricks; “I think I 
heard her whistle.” 

On the sidewalk in front of the hotel they met Mrs. 
Mason in her black silk with a hemstitched linen apron 
over it. She ushered them into the house, took them to 
their rooms, and whirled John around on a pivot, it 
seemed to him, with her interminable directions. His 
mother, who had come over to Minneola the day before, 
came to his room and quieted her son, and as he got 
ready for what he called the 44 ordeal,” he could hear Mrs. 
Mason swinging doors below stairs, walking on her heels 
through the house, receiving belated guests from Syca« 


102 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


more Ridge and the country, — for the whole county had 
been invited, — and he heard her carrying out a dog that 
had sneaked into the dining room. 

The groom missed the bride, and as he was tying his 
necktie, — which reminded him of General Ward by its 
whiteness, — he wondered why she did not come to him. 
He did not know that she was a prisoner in her room, 
while all the young girls in Sycamore Ridge and Min- 
neola were looking for pins and hooking her up and step¬ 
ping on each other’s skirts. For one wedding is like all 
weddings—whether it be in the Mason House, Minneola, 
or in Buckingham Palace. And some there are who 
marry for love in Minneola, and some for money, and 
some for a home, and some for Heaven only knows what, 
just as they do in the chateaux and palaces and mansions. 
And the groom is nobody and the bride is everything, as 
it was in the beginning and as it shall be ever after. 
Probably poor Adam had to stand behind a tree neg¬ 
lected and alone, while Lilith and girls from the land of 
Nod bedecked Eve for the festivities. Men are not made 
for ceremonies. And so at all the formal occasions of 
this life — whether it be among the great or among the 
lowly, in the East or the West, at weddings, christenings, 
and funerals —man hides in shame and leaves the affairs 
to woman, who leads him as an ox, even a muzzled ox, that 
treadeth out the corn. 44 The doomed man,” whispered 
John to Bob as the two in their black clothes stood at the 
head of the stair that led into the parlour of the Mason 
House that night, waiting for the wedding march to begin 
on the cabinet organ, 44 ate a hearty supper, consisting of 
beefsteak and eggs, and after shaking hands with his 
friends he mounted the gallows with a firm step! ” 

Then he heard the thud of the music book on the or¬ 
gan, the creak of the treadle, — and when he returned 
to consciousness he was Mrs. Mason’s son-in-law, and 
proud of it. And she, — bless her heart and the hearts of 
all good women who give up the joy of their lives to us 
poor unworthy creatures, — she stood by the wax-flower 
wreath under the glass case on the whatnot in the corner- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


103 


and wept into her real lace handkerchief, and wished 
with all the earnestness of her soul that she could think 
of some way to let John know that his trousers leg was 
wrinkled over his left shoe top. But she could not solve 
the problem, so she gave herself up to the consolation of 
her tears. Yet it should be set down to her credit that 
when the preacher’s amen was said, hers was the first head 
up, and while the others were rushing for the happy pair 
she was in the kitchen with her apron on dishing up the 
wedding supper. Well might the Sycamore Ridge Weekly 
Banner declare that the “ tables groaned with good things.” 
There were not merely a little piddling dish of salad, a bite 
of cake, and a dab of ice-cream. There were turkey and 
potatoes and vegetables and fruit and bread and cake and 
pudding and pie— four kinds of pie, mark you — and pre¬ 
serves, and “Won’t you please, Mrs. Culpepper, try some 
of that piccalilli?” and “Oh, Mrs. Ward, if you just would 
have a slice of that fruit cake,” and “Now, General, — a 
little more of the gravy for that turkey dressing—it is 
such a long ride home, ” or “ Colonel, I know you like corn 
bread, and I made this myself as a special compliment to 
Virginia.” 

And through it all the bride sat watching the door — 
looking always through the crowd for some one. Her 
face was anxious and her heart was clouded, and when the 
guests had gone and the house was empty, she left her 
husband and slipped out of the back door. There, after 
the glare of the lamps had left her eyes, she saw a little 
man walking with his head down, out near the barn, and 
she ran to him and threw her arms about him and kissed 
him, and when she led Lycurgus Mason, who was all 
washed and dressed, back through the kitchen to her 
husband, John saw that the man’s eyelids were red, and 
that on the starched cuffs were the marks of tears. For 
to him she was only his little girl, and John afterward 
knew that she was the only friend he had in the world. 
“ Oh, father, why didn’t you come in ? ” cried the daughter. 
“ I missed you so ! ” The man blinked a moment at the 
lights and looked toward his wife, who was busy at a table, 


104 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


as he said : “Who ? Me? ” and then added : “ I was just 
lookin’ after their horses. I was coming in pretty soon. 
You oughtn’t to bother about me. Well, John,” he smiled, 
as he put out his hand, “the seegars seems to be on you 
— as the feller says.” And John put his arm about 
Lycurgus Mason, as they walked out of the kitchen, and 
Jane reached for her gingham apron. Then life began 
for Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay in earnest. 


CHAPTER IX 


Forty thousand words—and that is the number we 
have piled up in this story — is a large number of words to 
string together without a heroine. That is almost as bad 
as the dictionary, in which He and She are always hun¬ 
dreds oi pages apart and never meet,—not even in the 
“ Z’s ” at the end, — which is why the dictionary is so un¬ 
popular, perhaps. But this is the story of a man. and 
naturally it must have many heroines. For you know 
men — they are all alike I First, Mrs. Mary Barclay was 
a heroine — you saw her face, strong and clean and sharply 
chiselled with a great purpose; then Miss Lucy — black- 
eyed, red-cheeked, slender little Miss Lucy—was a heroine, 
but she married General Ward; and then Ellen Culpep¬ 
per was a heroine, but she fluttered out of the book into 
the sunlight, and was gone; and then came Jane Mason, 

— and you have seen her girlish beauty, and you will see 
it develop into gentle womanhood; but the real heroine^ 

— of the real story, — you have not seen her face. You 
have heard her name, and have seen her moving through 
these pages with her back consciously turned to you — for 
being a shy minx, she had no desire to intrude until she 
was properly introduced. And now we will whirl her 
around that you may have a good look at her. 

Let us begin at the ground: as to feet — they are not 
too small — say three and a half in size. And they sup¬ 
port rather short legs — my goodness, of course she has 
legs — did you think her shoes were pinned to her over¬ 
skirt? Her legs carry around a plump body, — not fat — 
why, certainly not — who ever heard of a fat heroine (the 
very best a heroine can do for comfort is to be plump) — 
and so beginning the sentence over again, being a plump 
little body, there is a neck to account for — a neck which 

105 


106 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


we may look at, but which is so exquisite that it would be 
hardly polite to consider it in terms of language. Only 
when we come to the chin that tips the oval of the face 
may we descend to language, and even then we must rise 
and flick the red mouth with but a passing word. But this 
much must be plainly spoken. The nose does turn up — 
not much — but a little (Bob used to say, just to be good 
and out of the way) ! That, however, is mere personal 
opinion, and of little importance here. But the eyes are 
brown—reddish brown, with enough white at the corners 
to make them seem liquid; only liquid is not the word. 
For they are radiant — remember that word, for we may 
come back to it, after we are done with the brow — a wide 
brow — low enough for Dickens and Thackeray and Char¬ 
lotte Bronte, and for Longfellow and Whittier and Will 
Carleton in his day, and high enough for Tennyson at the 
temples, but not so high but that the gate of the eyes 
has to shut wearily when Browning would sail through 
the current of her soul. As to hair — Heaven knows there 
is plenty of that, but it had rather a checkered career. 
As she clung to her mother's apron and waved her father 
away to war, she was a tow-headed little tot, and when he 
came back from the field of glory he thought he could 
detect a tendency to red in it, but the fire smouldered 
and went out, and the hair turned brown — a dark brown 
with the glint of the quenched fires in it when it blew in 
the sun. Now frame a glowing young face in that soft 
waving hair, and you have a picture that will speak, and 
if the picture should come to life and speak as it was in 
the year of our Lord 1873, the first word of all the words 
in the big fat dictionary it would utter would be Bob. 
And so you may lift up your face and take your name and 
place in this story — Molly Culpepper, heroine. And 
when you lift your face, we may see something more than 
its pretty features: we shall see a radiant soul. For scien¬ 
tists have found out that every material thing in this uni¬ 
verse gives off atomic particles of itself, and some elements 
are more radiant than others. And there is a paralleling 
quality in the spiritual world, and some souls give off 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


107 


more of tlieir colour and substance than others, though 
what it is they radiate we do not know. Even the scien¬ 
tists do not know the material things that the atoms radi¬ 
ate, so why should we be asked to define the essence of 
souls? Yet from the soul of Molly Culpepper, in joy and 
in sorrow, in her moments of usefulness and in her deepest 
woe, her soul glowed and shed its glory, and she grew even 
as she gave her substance to the world about her. For 
that is the magic of God’s mystery of life. 

And now having for the moment finished our discussion 
on the radio-activity of souls, let us go back to the story. 

Mary Barclay rode home from her son’s wedding that 
night with Bob Hendricks and Molly Culpepper. They 
were in a long line of buggies that began to scatter out 
and roam across fields to escape the dust of the roads. 
“Well,” said Mrs. Barclay, as they pulled up the bank of 
the Sycamore for home, “ I suppose it will be you and 
Molly next, Bob?” 

It was Molly who replied: “Yes. It is going to be 
Thanksgiving.” 

“Well, why not?” asked Mrs. Barclay. 

“Oh—-they all seem to think we shouldn’t, don’t you 
know, Mrs. Barclay — with all this hard times-—and the 
bank closing. And hasn’t John told you of the plan he’s 
worked out for Bob to go to New York this winter?” 

The buggy was nearing the Barclay home. Mrs. Bar¬ 
clay answered, “No,” and the girl went on. 

“Well, it’s a big wheat land scheme — and Bob’s to go 
East and sell the stock. They worked it out last night 
after the bank closed. He’ll tell you all about it.” 

Mrs. Barclay was standing by the buggy when the girl 
finished. The elder woman bade the young people good 
night, and turned and went into the yard and stood a 
moment looking at the stars before going into her lonely 
house. The lovers let the tired horses lag up the hill, 
and as they turned into Lincoln Avenue the girl was 
saying: “A year’s so long, Bob, — so long. And you 11 
be away, and I’m afraid.” He tried to reassure her; but 
she protested : “ You are all my life, — big boy, —- all my 


108 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


life. I was only fourteen, just a little girl, when you 
came into my life, and all these long seven years you are 
the only human being that has been always in my heart. 
Oh, Bob, Bob, — always.” 

What a man says to his sweetheart is of no importance. 
Men are so circumscribed in their utterances — so tongue- 
tied in love. They all say one thing; so it need not be 
set down here what Bob Hendricks said. It was what the 
king said to the queen, the prince to the princess, the duke 
to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the troubadour to 
his dulcinea. And Molly Culpepper replied, “ When are 
you going, Bob?” 

The young man picked up the sagging lines to turn out 
for Watts McHurdie’s buggy. He had just let Nellie 
Logan out at the Wards’, where she lived. After a “Hello, 
Watts; getting £i*etty late for an old man like you,” 
Hendricks answered: “Well, you know John — when he 
gets a thing in his head he’s a regular tornado. There 
was an immense crowd in town to-day — depositors and all 
that. And do you know, John went out this afternoon 
with a paper in his hand, and live hundred dollars he dug 
out of his safe over in the office, and he got options to lease 
their land for a year signed up by the owners of five thou¬ 
sand acres of the best wheat land in Garrison County. He 
wants twenty thousand acres, and pretty well bunched 
down in Pleasant and Spring townships, and I’m going in 
four days.” The young man was full of the scheme. He 
went on: “John's a wonder, Molly, — a perfect wonder. 
He’s got grit. Father wouldn’t have been able to stand 
up under this — but John has braced him, and has cheered 
up the people, and I believe, before the week is out, we will 
be able to get nearly all the depositors to agree to leave 
their money alone for a year, and then only take it out on 
thirty days’ notice. And if we can get that, we can open 
up by the first of the month. But I’ve got to go on to 
Washington to see if I can arrange that with the comp¬ 
troller of the currency.” 

They were standing at the Culpepper gate as he spoke. 
A light in the upper windows showed that the parents 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


109 


were in. Buchanan came ambling along the walk and 
went through the gate between them without speaking. 
When he had closed the door, the girl came close to her 
lover. He took her in his arms, and cried, “ Oh, darling, 

— only four more days together.” He paused, and in the 
starlight she saw on his face more than words could have 
told her of his love for her. He was a silent youth; the 
spoken word came haltingly to his lips, and as often hap¬ 
pens, words were superfluous to him in his moments of 
great emotion. He put her hands to his lips, and moaned, 
for the hour of parting seemed to be hurrying down upon 
him. Finally his tongue found liberty. “ Oh, sweet¬ 
heart— sweetheart,” he cried, “ always remember that 
you are bound in my soul with the iron of youth’s first 
love — my only love. Oh, I never could again, dear, — only 
you — only you. After this it would be a sacrilege.” 

They stood silent in the joy of their ecstacy for a long 
minute, then he asked gently: “ Do you understand, Molly, 

— do you understand? this is forever for us, Molly, — for¬ 
ever. When one loves as we love — with our childhood 
and youth welded into it all — whom God hath joined—” 
he stammered; “ oh, Molly, whom God hath joined,” he 
whispered, and his voice trembled as he sighed again, and 
kissed her, “whom God hath joined. Oh, God — God, 
God! ” cried the lover, as he closed his eyes with his lips 
against her hair. 

The restless horses recalled the lovers to the earth. It 
was Molly who spoke. “Bob — Bob — I can’t let you 


go ! 

Molly Culpepper had no reserves with her lover. She 
went on whispering, with her face against his heart: 
“Bob—-Bob, big boy, I am going to tell you something 
truthy true, that I never breathed to any one. At night 
— to-night, in just a few minutes — when I go up to my 
room — all alone — I get your picture and hold it to me 
close, and holding it right next to my very heart, Bob, I 
pray for you.” She paused a moment, and then continued, 
“Oh, and — I pray for us — Bob — I pray for us.” Then 
she ran up the stone walk, and on the steps she turned 


110 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


throw kisses at him, but he did not move until he heard 
the lock click in the front door. 

At the livery-stable he found Watts McHurdie bending 
over some break in his buggy. They walked up the street 
together. At the corner where they were about to part 
the little man said, as he looked into the rapturous face of 
the lanky boy, “Well, Bob,—it’s good-by, John, for you, 
I suppose?” 

“Oh — I don’t know,” replied the other from his en¬ 
chanted world and then asked absently, “Why?” 

“Well, it’s nature, I guess. She’ll take all his time 
now.” He rubbed his chin reflectively, and as Bob turned 
to go Watts said: “My Heavens, how time does fly! It 
just seems like yesterday that all you boys were raking 
over the scrap-pile back of my shop, and slipping in and 
nipping leather strands and braiding them into whips, and 
I’d have to douse you with water to get rid of you. I 
got a quirt hanging up in the shop now that Johnnie Bar¬ 
clay dropped one day when I got after him with a pan of 
water. It’s a six-sided one, with eight strands down in 
the round part. I taught him how to braid it.” He 
chewed a moment and spat before going on : “ And now 
look at him. He’s little, but oh my.” Something was 
working under McHurdie’s belt, for Bob could hear it 
chuckling as he chewed: “Wasn’t she a buster? It’s 
funny, ain’t it — the way we all pick big ones — we sawed- 
offs”? The laugh came — a quiet, repressed gurgle, and 
he added: “Yes — by hen, and you long-shanks always 
pick little dominickers. Eh ? ” He chewed a meditative 
cud before venturing, “ That’s what I told her coinin’ 
home to-night.” Bob knew whom he meant. The man 
went on: “But when she saw them—him so little she’ll 
have to shake the sheet to find him — and her so big and 
busting, I seen her — you know,” he nodded his head 
wisely to indicate which “her” he meant. “I saw her 
a-eying me, out of the corner of her eye, and looking at 
him, and then looking at the girl, and looking at herself, 
and on the way home to-night I’m damned if I didn’t have 
to put off asking her another six months.” He sighed and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


111 


continued, “ And the first thing I know the drummer or 
the preacher’ll get her.” He chewed for a minute in peace 
and chuckled, “Well—-Bob, I suppose you’ll be next?” 
He did not wait for an answer, but spoke up quickly, 
“ Well, Bob, good night — good night,” and hurried to his 
shop. 

The next day the people that blackened Main Street in 
Sycamore Ridge talked of two things — the bank failure 
and the new Golden Belt Wheat Company. Barclay en¬ 
listed Colonel Culpepper, and promised him two dollars 
for every hundred-acre option to lease that he secured at 
three dollars an acre — the cash on the lease to be paid 
March first. Barclay’s plan was to organize a stock com¬ 
pany and to sell his stock in the East for enough to raise 
eight dollars an acre for every acre he secured, and to use 
the five dollars for making the crop. He believed that 
with a good wheat crop the next year he could make 
money and buy as much land as he needed. But that 
year of the panic John capitalized the hardship of his 
people, and made terms for them, which they could not 
refuse. He literally sold them their own want. For the 
fact that he had a little ready money and could promise 
more before harvest upon which the people might live — 
however miserably was no concern of his — made it pos¬ 
sible for him to drive a bargain little short of robbery. 
It was Bob’s part of the business to float the stock com¬ 
pany in the East among his father’s rich friends. John 
was to furnish the money to keep Bob in New York, 
and the Hendricks’ connections in banking circles were 
to furnish the cash to float the proposition, and the 
Hendricks’ bank — if John could get it opened again 
— was to guarantee that the stock subscribed would 
pay six per cent interest. So there was no honeymoon 
for John Barclay. When he dropped the reins and helped 
his bride out of the buggy the next morning in front of 
the Thayer House, he hustled General Ward’s little boy 
into the seat, told him to drive the team to Dolan’s stable, 
and waving the new Mrs. Barclay good-by, limped in a 
trot over to the bank. In five minutes he was working 


112 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


in the crowd, and by night had the required number of 
the depositors ready to agree to let their money lie a year 
on deposit, and that matter was closed. He was a 
solemn-faced youth in those days, with a serious air about 
him, and something of that superabundance of dignity 
little men often think they must assume to hold their own. 
The town knew him as a trim little man in a three- 
buttoned tail-coat, with rather extraordinary neckties, 
a well-brushed hat, and shiny shoes. To the country peo¬ 
ple he was “limping Johnnie,” and General Ward, watch¬ 
ing Barclay hustle his way down Main Street Saturday 
afternoons, when the sidewalk and the streets were full 
of people, used to say, “Busier ’n a tin pedler.” And 
he said to Mrs. Ward, “ Lucy, if it’s true that old 
Grandpa Barclay got his start carrying a pack, you can 
see him cropping out in John, bigger than a wolf.” 

But the general had little time to devote to John, for 
he was state organizer of a movement that had for its 
object the abolition of middlemen in trade, and he was 
travelling most of the time. The dust gathered on his 
law-books, and his Sunday suit grew frayed at the edges 
and shiny at the elbows, but his heart was in the cause, 
and his blue eyes burned with joy when he talked, and he 
was happy, and had to travel two days and nights when 
the fourth baby came, and then was too late to serve on 
the committee on reception, and had to be satisfied with a 
minor place on the committee on entertainment and amuse¬ 
ments of which Mrs. Culpepper was chairman. But John 
turned in half of a fee that came from the East for a law¬ 
suit that both he and Ward had forgotten, and Miss Lucy 
would have named the new baby Mary Ward, but the 
general stood firm for Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Sitting 
at Sunday dinner with the Wards on the occasion of 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward’s first monthly birthday, 
John listened to the general’s remarks on the iniquity of 
the money power, and the wickedness of the national 
banks, and kept respectful and attentive silence. The 
worst the young man did was to wink swiftly across the 
table at Watts McHurdie, who had been invited by Mrs. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


113 


Ward with malice prepense and seated by Nellie Logan. 
The wink came just as the general, waving the carving 
knife, was saying: “ Gentlemen, it’s the world-old fight 
— the fight of might against right. When I was a boy 
like you, John, the fight was between brute strength and 
the oppressed; between slaves and masters. Now it is 
between weakness and cunning, between those who would 
be slaveholders if they could be, and those who are fight¬ 
ing the shackles.” And Mrs. Ward saw the wink, and 
John saw that she saw it, and he was ashamed. 

So before the afternoon was over, Mr. and Mrs. John 
Barclay went over to Hendricks’s, picking up Molly Cul¬ 
pepper on the way, and the three spent the evening with 
the general and Miss Hendricks — a faded mousy little 
woman in despairing thirties; and before the open fire 
they sat and talked, and John played the piano for an hour, 
and thought out an extra kink for the Golden Belt Wheat 
Company’s charter. He jabbered about it to Jane as they 
walked home, and the next day it became a fact. 

“ That boy,” said the colonel to his assembled family 
one evening as they dined on mush and dried peaches, and 
coffee made of parched corn, “that John Barclay certainly 
and surely is a marvel. Talk about drawing blood from 
a turnip, — why, he can strike an artery in a pumpkin.” 
The colonel smiled reflectively as he proceeded : “ Chicago 
lawyer came in on the stage this afternoon, — kinder get¬ 
ting uneasy about a little interest I owed to an Ohio man on 
that College Heights property, and John took that Chicago 
lawyer up to his office, and talked him into putting the 
interest in a second mortgage with all the interest that will 
fall due till next spring, and then traded him Golden Belt 
Wheat Company stock for the mortgage and a thousand 
dollars besides.” 

“ Well, did John give you back the mortgage, father ? ” 
asked Molly. 

“No, sis,— that wouldn’t be business,” replied the colo¬ 
nel, as he stirred his dried peaches into his third dish of 
mush for dessert; “ business is business, you know. John 
took the mortgage over to the bank and discounted it for 


114 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


some money to buy more options with. John surely does 
make things hum.” 

“ Yes, and lie’s made Bob resign from the board of com¬ 
missioners, and won’t let him come home Christmas, and 
keeps him on fifty dollars a month there in New York— 
all the same,” returned the girl. 

The colonel looked at his daughter a moment in sympa* 
thetic silence; then he put his thumbs in the armholes of 
his vest and tilted back in his chair and answered : “ Oh, 
well, my dear, — when you are living in a brown-stone house 
on Fifth Avenue down in New York, stepping on a nigger 
every which way you turn, you’ll thank John that he did 
keep Bob at work, and not bring him back here to pin on 
a buffalo tail, drink crick water, eat tumble weeds, and run 
wild. I say, and I fear no contradiction when I say it, 
that John Barclay is a marvel — a living wonder in point 
of fact. And if Bob Hendricks wants to come back here 
and live on the succulent and classic bean and the luscious, 
and I may say tempting, flapjack, let him come, Molly 
Farquhar Culpepper, let him come.” The colonel, proud 
of his language, looked around the family circle. “ And 
we at our humble board, with our plain though — shall 1 
say nutritive — yes, nutritive and wholesome fare, should 
thank our lucky stars that John Barclay keeps the Golden 
Belt Wheat Company going, and your husband and father 
can make a more or less honest dollar now and then to 
supply your simple wants.” 

The colonel had more in his mind, for he rose and began 
to pace the floor in a fine frenzy. But Mrs. Culpepper 
looked up for an instant from her tea, and said, “ You 
know you forgot the mail to-day, father,” and he replied, 
“Yes, that’s so.” Then added: “Molly dear, will you 
bring me my overcoat — please ?” 

The girl bundled her father into his threadbare blue 
army overcoat with the cape. He stood for a moment 
absently rattling some dimes in his pocket. Then the 
faintness of their jingle must have appealed to him, for 
he drew a long breath and walked majestically away. 
He was a tall stout man in the midst of his forties, with a 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


115 


military goatee and black flowing mustaches, and he wore 
his campaign hat pinned up at the side with the brass 
military pin and swayed with some show of swagger as he 
walked. His gift of oratory he did not bring to the flower 
of its perfection except at lodge. He was always sent as 
a delegate to Grand Lodge, and when he came home men 
came from all over the county to see the colonel exemplify 
the work. But as he marched to funerals under his large 
white plume and with his sword dangling at his side, 
Colonel Martin Culpepper, six feet four one way and four 
feet two the other, was a regal spectacle, and it will be 
many years before the town will see his like again. 

The colonel walked over to the post-oflice box and got 
his mail, then took a backless chair and drew it up to the 
sand box in which the stove sat, and the conversation be¬ 
came general in its nature, ranging from Emerson’s theory 
of the cosmos and the whiskey ring to the efficacy of a 
potato in the pocket for rheumatism. Finally when they 
had come to their “ don’t you remembers ” about the battle 
of Wilson’s Creek, General Ward, with his long coat but¬ 
toned closely about him, came shivering into the store to 
get some camphor gum and stood rubbing his cold hands 
b}' the stove while the clerk was wrapping up the package. 
His thin nose was red and his eyes watered, and he had 
little to say. When he went out the colonel said, “What’s 
he going to run for this year ? ” 

“Haven’t you heard?” replied McHurdie, and to the 
colonel’s negative Watts replied, “Governor — the up¬ 
rising’s going to nominate him.” 

“Yes,” said Frye, “and he’ll go off following that fool¬ 
ishness and leave his wife and children to John or the 
neighbours.” 

“ Do you suppose he thinks he’ll win ? ” asked the 
Colonel. 

“Naw,” put in McHurdie; “ I was talking to him only 
last week in the shop, and he says, 4 Watts, you boys 
don’t understand me.’ He says, ‘I don’t want their 
offices. What I want is to make them think. I’m sowing 
seed. Some day it will come to a harvest — maybe long 


116 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


after I’m dead and gone.’ I asked him if a little seed 
wouldn’t help out some for breakfast, and he didn’t answer. 
Then he said : 4 Watts— what you need is faith — faith in 
God and not in money. There are no Christians ; they 
don’t believe in God, or they’d trust Him more. They 
don’t trust God ; they trust money. Yet I tell you it will 
work. Go ahead — do your work in the world, and you 
won’t starve nor your children beg in the streets.’ ” Mc- 
Hurdie stopped a moment to gnaw his plug of tobacco. 
“The general’s gitting kind of a crank — and I told 
him so.” 

“ What did he say ? ” inquired the colonel. 

“Oh, he just laughed,” replied McHurdie; “he just 
laughed and said if he was a crank I was a poet, and 
neither was much good at the note -window of the bank, 
and we kind of made it up.” 

And so the winter evening grew old, and one by one 
the cronies rose and yawned and went their way. Even¬ 
ing after evening went thus, and was it strange that in 
the years that came, when the sunset of life was gilding 
things for Watts McHurdie, he looked through the golden 
haze and saw not the sand in the pit under the stove, not 
the rows of drugs on the wall, not the patent medicine 
bottles in their faded wrappers, but as he wrote many 
years after in “Autumn Musing”: — 

“ Those nights when Wisdom was our guide 
And Friendship was the glow, 

That warmed our souls like living coals, 

Those nights of long ago.” 

Nor is it strange that Martin Culpepper, his commentator, 
conning those lines through the snows of many winters, 
should be a little misty as to details, and having taken his 
pen in hand to write, should set down this note: — 

“ These lines probably refer to the evenings which the 
poet passed in a goodly company of choice spirits during the 
early seventies. E’en as I write, Memory, with tender 
hand, pushes back the sombre curtain, and I see them now 
— that charmed circle; the poet with the brow of Jove 
and Minerva’s lips ; the rugged warrior at his side, with 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


117 


the dignity of Mars himself; perhaps some Crcesus with 
his gold, drawn by the spell of Wisdom’s enchantment 
into the magic circle ; and this your humble disciple of 
Thucydides, sitting spellbound under the drippings of 
the sacred font, getting the material for these pages. 
That was the Golden Age; there were giants in those 
days.” 

And so there were, Colonel Martin Culpepper of the 
Great Heart and the “ large white plumes ” — so there 
were. 


CHAPTER X 


It was a cold raw day in March, 18T4. Colonel Cul¬ 
pepper was sitting in the office of Ward and Barclay over 
the Exchange National Bank waiting for the junior 
member of the firm to come in; the senior member of the 
firm, who had just brought up an arm load of green hick¬ 
ory and dry hackberry stove wood, was standing beside 
the box-shaped stove, abstractedly brushing the sawdust 
and wormwood from his sleeves and coat front. The 
colonel was whistling and whittling, and the general kept 
on brushing after the last speck of dust had gone from his 
shiny coat. He walked to the window and stared into the 
ugly brown street. 

Two or three minutes passed, and Colonel Culpepper, 
anxious for the society of his kind, spoke. “ Well, Gen¬ 
eral, what’s the trouble ? ” 

“Nothing in particular, Martin. I was just question¬ 
ing the reality of matter and the existence of the universe 
as you spoke; but it’s not important.” The general 
shivered, and turned his kind blue eyes on his friend in a 
smile, and then bethought him to put the wood in the 
stove. 

While he was jamming in a final stick, Colonel Cul¬ 
pepper inquired, “ Well, am I an appearance or an entity?” 

The general put the smoking poker on the floor, and 
turned the damper in the pipe as he answered: “That’s 
what I can’t seem to make out. You know old Emerson 
says a man doesn’t amount to much as a thinker until he 
has doubted the existence of matter. And I just got to 
thinking about it, and wondering if this was a real world 
after all — or just my idea of one.” The two men smiled 
at the notion, and Ward went on: “All right, laugh if 
you want to, but if this is a real world, whose world is 

118 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


119 


it, your world or my world? Here is John Barclay, for 
instance. Sometimes I get a peek at his world.” Ward 
picked up the poker and sat down and hammered the toe 
of a boot with it as he went on : u John’s world is the 
Golden Belt Wheat Company, wheat pouring a steady 
stream into boundless bins, and money flowing in golden 
ripples over it all. Sometimes Bob Hendricks’ head 
rises above the tide long enough to gasp or cry for help 
and beg to come home, but John’s golden flood sweeps 
over him again, and lie’s gone. And here’s your world, 
Martin, wherein every one is kind and careless, and gener¬ 
ous and good, and full of smiles and gayety. And there’s 
Lige Bemis’ w’orld, full of cunning and hypocrisy, and 
meanness and treachery and plotting — a hell of a world it 
is, with its foundations on hate and deceit — but it’s his 
world, and he has the same right to it that I have to mine. 
And there’s old Watts’ world—” The general sighted 
along the poker over his toe to the stove side whereon a 
cornucopia wriggled out of nothing and poured its rich¬ 
ness of fruit and grain into nothing. u There’s Watts’ 
world, full of stuffed Personifications, Virtue, Pleasure, 
Happiness, Sin, Sorrow, and God knows what of demigods, 
with the hay of his philosophy sticking out of their eye¬ 
holes. You know about his maxims, Mart; he actually 
lives by ’em, and no matter how common sense yells at 
him to get off the track, old Watts just goes on following 
his maxims, and gets butted into the middle of next 
week.” 

The colonel was making a hole in the stick in his hands, 
and his attention was fixed on the whittling, but he added, 
“And your own world, General — how about your own 
world ? ” 

“ My world,” replied the general, as he pulled at the 
bows of his rather soiled white tie, and evened them, “ My 
world.—’’the general jabbed the poker spear-like into 
the floor, “ I guess I’m a kind of a transcendentalist! ” 

The colonel blew the chips through the hole in his 
stick ; he bored it round in the pause that followed before 
he spoke. 


120 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ A transcendentalist, eh ? Well, pintedly, General, that 
is what I may call a soft impeachment, as the poet says —* 
a mighty soft impeachment. I’ve heard you called a lot 
worse names than that — and I may say,” here the crow’s- 
feet began scratching for a smile around the colonel’s 
eyes, “proved, sir, with you as the prosecuting witness.” 

The two men chuckled. Then the general, balancing 
himself, with the poker point on the floor, as he tilted 
back went on : “ My world, Mart Culpepper, is a world in 
which the ideal is real — a world in a state of flux with 
thoughts of to-day the matter of to-morrow ; my world is 
a world of faith that God will crystallize to-day’s aspira¬ 
tions into to-morrow’s justice; my world,” the general rose 
and waved his poker as if to beat dowm the forces of ma¬ 
terialism about him, “ my world is the substance of things 
hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” He paused. 
“As I was saying,” he continued at last, “ if this is a real 
world, if matter actually exists and this world is not a 
dream of my consciousness, wdiose w r orld is it, my world, 
your w r orld, Watts McHurdie’s world, Lige’s w r orld, or 
John’s world? It can’t be all of ’em.” He put the poker 
across the stove hearth, and sank his hands deeply into his 
pockets as he continued : “ The question that philosophy 
never has answered is this : Am I a spectre and you an 
essence, or are you a spectre and am I an essence ? Is it 
your world or mine ? ” 

The two men looked instinctively at the rattling door¬ 
knob, and John Barclay limped into the room. His face 
was red with the cold and the driving mist. He walked 
to the stove and unbuttoned his ulster, while the colonel 
put the subject of the debate before him. The general 
amended the colonel’s statement from time to time, but the 
young man only smiled tolerantly and shook his head. 
Then he went to his desk and pulled a letter from a 
drawer. 

“ Colonel, I’ve got a letter here from Bob. The thing 
doesn’t seem to be moving. He only sold about a thou¬ 
sand dollars’ worth of stock last month — a falling off of 
forty per cent, and we must have more or we can’t take up 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


1^1 


our leases. He’s begging like a dog to come home for a 
week, but I can’t let him. We need that week.” He 
limped over to the elder and put his hand on the tall man’s 
arm as he said : u Now, Colonel, that was what I sent for 
you about. 1 ou kind of speak to Molly and have her 
write him and tell him to hold on a little while. It’s 
business, you know, and we can’t afford to have sentiment 
interfere with business.” 

The colonel, standing by the window, replied, after 
a pause : “ I can see where you are right, John. Business 
is business. You got to consider that.” He looked into 
the street below and saw General Hendricks come shud¬ 
dering into the cold wind. “ How’s he getting on ? ” 
asked Culpepper, nodding towards Hendricks, who seemed 
unequal to the gale. 

“Oh, I don’t know, Colonel,—-times are hard.” 

“ My, how he’s aging ! ” said the colonel, softly. 

After a silence Barclay said : “ There’s one thing sure 
— I’ve got it into his hard old head that Bob is doing 
something back there, and he couldn’t earn his salt here. 
Besides,” added Barclay, as if to justify himself against an 
accusing conscience, “ the old man does all the work in the 
bank now, with time to spare.” 

It was the day of army overcoats, and the hard times 
had brought hundreds of them from closets and trunks. 
General Hendricks, fluttering down the street in his faded 
blue, made a rather pathetic figure. The winter had 
whitened his hair and withered his ruddy face. His un¬ 
equal struggle with the wind seemed some way symbolical 
of his life, and the two men watched him out of sight 
without a word. The colonel turned toward his own blue 
overcoat which lay sprawling in a chair, and Barclay said 
as he helped the elder man squeeze into it, “ Don’t forget 
to speak to Molly, Colonel,” and then ushered him to the 
door. For a moment Colonel Culpepper stood at the bot¬ 
tom of the stairs, partly hesitating to go into the windy 
street, and partly trying to think of some way in which 
he could get the subject on his mind before his daughter in 
the right way. Then as he stood on the threshold with 


122 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


his nose in the storm, he recalled General Ward’s discourse 
about the different worlds, and he thought of Molly’s 
world of lovers’ madness, and that brought up his own 
youth and its day-dreams, and Molly flew out of his mind 
and her mother came in, and he saw her blue-eyed and fair 
as she stood before him on their wedding-day. With that 
picture in his heart he breasted the storm and went home 
whistling cheerfully, walking through his world like a 
prince. 

When the colonel left the office of Ward and Barclay, the 
partners retired into their respective worlds and went sail¬ 
ing through space, each world upon its own axis. The 
general in a desultory way began writing letters to reform¬ 
ers urging them to prepare for the coming struggle; but 
John was head over heels in the business of the Golden 
Belt Wheat Company, and in an hour had covered two 
sheets of foolscap with figures and had written a dozen 
letters. The scratch, scratch of his pen was as regular as 
the swish of- a piston. On the other hand, the general 
often stopped and looked off into space, and three times 
he got up to mend the fire. At the end of the afternoon 
Mrs. Ward came in, her cheeks pink with the cold ; she 
had left tlie seven-year-old to care for the one-year-old, and 
the five-year-old to look after the three-year-old, and had 
come scurrying through the streets in a brown alpaca dress 
with a waterproof cape over her shoulders. She and the 
general spoke for a few moments in their corner, and she 
hurried out again. The general finished the letter he 
was writing and wrote another, and then backed up to the 
stove with his coat tails in front of him and stood benignly 
watching Barclay work. Barclay felt the mail’s attention, 
and whirling about in his chair licking an envelope flap, lie 
said, “ Well, General — what’s on your mind?” 

“ I was just thinking of Lucy — that’s all,” replied the 
general. Barclay knew that the Wards had gone through 
the winter on less than one hundred dollars, and it oc¬ 
curred to the younger man that times might be rather 
hard in the Ward household. So he asked, “Are you wor¬ 
ried about money matters, General?” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


123 


The general's smile broadened to a grin. “ Well, to be 
exact, Lucy and I just counted cash — it’s in her pocket- 
book, and we find our total cash assets are eight dollars 
and thirty-nine cents, and it’s got to tide us over till grass.” 
He stroked his lean chin, and ran his hands through his 
iron-gray hair and went on, “ That’s plenty, the way 
we’ve figured it out— Lucy and I only eat one meal a day 
anyway, and the children seem to eat all the time and that 
averages it up.” He smiled deprecatingly and added : 
“But Lucy’s got her heart set on a little matter, and 
we’ve decided to spend eighty-seven cents, as }^ou might 
say riotously, and get it. That’s what we were talking 
about.” 

Barclay entered into the spirit of Ward’s remarks and 
putin: “But the National debt, General — if you have 
all that money to spare, why don't you pay it off? Practise 
what you preach, General.” 

The smile faded from Ward’s face. He was not a man 
to joke on what he regarded as sacred things. He replied: 
“ Yes, yes, that’s just it. My share of the interest on that 
debt this winter was just seventy-five cents, and if it wasn’t 
for that, we would have had enough to get them; as it is, 
we are going to cut out meat for a week — we figured it 
all out just now — and get them anyway. She’s down at 
the store buying them.” 

“ Buying what ? ” asked Barclay. 

The general’s face lighted up again with a grin, and he 
replied: “Now laugh — dog-gone you — buying flower 
seeds ! ” They heard a step at the bottom of the stairs, 
and the general strode to the door, opened it, and called 
down, “ All right, Lucy — I’m coming,” and buttoning 
up his coat, he whisked himself from the room, and Barclay, 
looking out of the window, watched the two forms as they 
disappeared in the dusk. But appearances are so decep¬ 
tive. The truth is that what he saw was not there at all, 
but only appeared on his retina; the two forms that he 
seemed to see were not shivering through the twilight, but 
were walking among dahlias and coxcombs and four- 
o’clocks and petunias and poppies and hollyhocks on a 


124 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


wide lawn whereon newly set elm trees were fluttering 
their faint green foliage in the summer breeze. Yet John 
Barclay would have sworn he saw them there in the cold 
street, with the mist beating upon them, and curiously 
corroborative of this impression is a memory he retained 
of reflecting that since the general’s blue overcoat had 
disappeared the winter before, he had noticed that little 
Thayer had a blue Sunday suit and little Elizabeth Cady 
Stanton had appeared wrapped in a blue baby coat. But 
that only shows how these matter-of-fact people are fooled. 
For though the little Wards were caparisoned in blue, and 
though the general’s blue overcoat did disappear about 
that time, the general and Lucy Ward have no recollection 
of shivering home that night, but instead they know that 
they walked among the flowers. 

And John, looking into the darkening street, must have 
seen something besides the commonplace couple that he 
thought he saw; for as he turned away to light his lamp 
and go to work again, he smiled. Surely there was nothing 
to smile at in the thing he saw. Perhaps God was trying 
to make him see the flowers. But he did not see them, and 
as it was nearly an hour before six o’clock, he turned to 
his work under the lamp and finished his letter to Bob 
Hendricks. When it was written, he read it over care¬ 
fully, crossing his “ t’s ” and dotting his “ i’s,” and as no 
one was in the room he mumbled it aloud, thus: — 

“ Dear Bob : — Don’t get blue; it will be all right. Stick to it. 1 
am laying a wire that will get you an audience with Jay Gould. Make 
the talk of your life there. You may be able to interest him — if just 
for a few dollars. Offer him anything. Give him the stock if he will 
let us use his name. 

“ Don’t get uneasy about Molly, Bob. Jane and I see that she goes 
to everything, and we’ve scared her up a kind of brevet beau — an 
old rooster named Brownwell—Adrian Pericles Brownwell, who has 
blown in here and bought the Banner from Ezra Lane. Brownwell is 
from Alabama. Do you remember, Bob, that day at Wilson’s Creek 
after we got separated in the Battle I ran into a pile of cavalry writh¬ 
ing in a road? Well, there was one face in that awful struggling mass 
that I always remembered — and I never expect to see such a look of 
fear on a man’s face again — he was a young fellow then, but now he’s 
thirty-five or so. Well — that was this man Brownwell. I asked him 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


125 


about it the other day. How he ever got out alive, I don’t know; but 
the fact that he should turn up here proves that this is a small world. 
Brownwell also is a writer from Writersville. You should see the way 
he paints the lily in the Banner every week. You remember old Cap 
Lee — J. Lord Lee of the Red Legs— and Lady Lee, as they called her 
when she was a sagebrush siren with the 4 Army of the Border’ before 
the War? Well, read this clipping from the Banner of this week: 
i The wealth, beauty, and fashion of Minneola — fairest village of the 
plain—were agog this week over the birth of a daughter to Lord and 
Lady Lee, whose prominence in our social circles makes the event one 
of first importance in our week’s annals. Little Beatrix, for so they 
have decided to christen her, will some day be a notable addition to 
our refined and gracious circles. Welcome to you, little stranger.’ 

“ Now you know the man ! You needn’t be jealous of him. How* 
ever, he has frozen to the Culpeppers because they are from the South, 
and clearly he thinks they are the only persons of consequence in town. 
So he beaus Molly around with Jane and me to the concerts and socia 
bles and things. He is easily thirty-five, walks with a cane, struts 
like a peacock, and Molly and Jane are having great sport with him. 
Also he is the only man in town with any money. He brought five 
thousand dollars in gold, real money, — his people made it on contra¬ 
band cotton contracts during the War, they say, — and he has been the 
only visible means of support the town has had for three months. 
But in the meantime don’t worry about Molly, Bob, she’s all right, and 
business is business, you know, and you shouldn’t let such things inter¬ 
fere with it. But in another six months we’ll be out of the woods and 
on our way to big money.” 

Now another strange thing happened to John Barclay 
that evening, and this time it was what he saw, not what 
he failed to see, that puzzled him. For just as he sealed 
the letter to his friend, and thumped his lean fist on it to 
blot the address on the envelope and press the mucilage 
down, he looked around suddenly, though he never knew 
why, and there, just outside the rim of light from his lamp¬ 
shade, trembled the image of Ellen Culpepper with her 
red and black checked flannel dress at her shoe tops and 
his rubber button ring upon her finger. She smiled at 
him sweetly for a moment and shook her head sadly, and 
her curls fluttered upon her shoulders, and then she seemed 
to fade into the general’s desk by the opposite wall. John 
was pallid and frightened for a moment; then as he looked 
at the great pile of letters before him he realized how 
tired and worn he was. But the face and the eyes haunted 


126 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


him and brought back old memories, and that night h« 
and Jane and Molly Culpepper went to Hendricks’, and he 
played the piano for an hour in the firelight, and dreamed 
old dreams. And his hands fell into the chords of a song 
that he sang as a boy, and Molly came from the fire and 
stood beside him while they hummed the words in a low 
duet: — 

“ Let me believe that you love as you loved 
Long, long ago — long ago.’* 

But when he went out into the drizzling night, and he 
and Jane left Molly at home, he stepped into the whirling 
yellow world of gold and grain, and drafts and checks, and 
leases and mortgages, and Heaven knows what of plots and 
schemes and plans. So he did not heed Jane when she 
said, “ Poor — poor little Molly,” but replied as he latched 
the Culpepper gate, “Oh, Molly’ll be all right. You 
can’t mix business and pleasure, you know. Bob must 
stay.” 

And when Molly went into the house, she found her 
mother waiting for her. The colonel’s courage had 
failed him. The mother took her daughter's hand, and 
the two walked up the broad stairs together. 

“ Molly,” said the mother, as the girl listlessly went 
about her preparations for bed, “ don't grieve so about 
Bob. Father and John need him there. It’s business, 
you know.” 

The daughter answered, “Yes, I know, but I’m so lone¬ 
some— so lonesome.” Then she sobbed, “You know he 
hasn’t written for a whole week, and I’m afraid—-afraid !” 

When the paroxysm had passed, the mother said : “ You 
know, my dear, they need him there a little longer, and 
he wants to come back. Your father told me that John 
sent word to-day that you must not let him come.” The 
girl’s face looked the pain that struck her heart, and she 
did not answer. “ Molly dear,” began the mother again, 
“ can’t you write to Bob to-morrow and urge him to stay 
— forme? For all of us? It is so much to us now — 
for a little while — to have Bob there, sending back money 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


127 


for the company. I don’t know what father would do 
if it wasn’t for the company — and John.” 

The daughter held her mother’s hand, and after gasp¬ 
ing down a sob, promised, and then as the sob kept tilting 
back in her throat, she cried : “ But oh, mother, it’s such a 
big world — so wide, and I am so afraid — so afraid of 
something — I don’t know what — only that I’m afraid.” 

But the mother soothed her daughter, and they talked 
of other things until she was quiet and drowsy. 

But when she went to sleep, she dreamed a strange 
dream. The next day she could not untangle it, save 
that with her for hours as she went about her duties was 
the odour of lilacs, and the face of her lover, now a young 
eager face in pain, and then, by the miracle of dreams, 
grown old, bald at the temples and brow, but fine and 
strong and clean — like a boy’s face. The face soon left 
her, but the smell of the lilacs was in her heart for days — 
they were her lilacs, from the bushes in the garden. 
As days and weeks passed, the dream blurred into the gray 
of her humdrum life and was gone. And so that day and 
that night dropped from time into eternity, and who 
knows of all the millions of stars that swarmed the 
heavens, Avhat ones held the wandering souls of the simple 
people of that bleak Western town as they lay on their 
pillows and dreamed. For if our waking hours are passed 
in worlds so wide apart, who shall know where we walk 
in dreams ? 

It is thirty years and more now since John Barclay 
dreamed of himself as the Wheat King of the Sycamore 
Valley, and in that thirty years he had considerable time 
to reflect upon the reasons why pride always goeth before 
destruction. And he figured it out that in his particular 
case he was so deeply engrossed in the money he was 
going to make that first year, that he did not study the 
simple problem of wheat-growing as he should have studied 
it. In those days wheat-growing upon the plains had not 
yet become the science it is to-day, and many Sycamore 
Valley farmers planted their wheat in the fall, and failed 
to make it pay, and many other Sycamore Valley farmers 


128 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


planted their wheat in the spring, and failed, while many 
others succeeded. The land had not been definitely 
staked off and set apart by experience as a winter wheat 
country, and so the farmers operating under the Golden 
Belt Wheat Company, in the spring of 1874, planted their 
wheat in March. 

That was a beautiful season on the plains. April rains 
came, and the great fields glowed green under the mild 
spring sun. And Bob Hendricks, collecting the money 
from his stock subscriptions, poured it into the treasury 
of the company, and John Barclay spent the money for 
seed and land and men to work the land, and so confident 
was he of the success of the plan that he borrowed every 
dollar he could lay his hands on, and got leases on more 
land and bought more seed and hired more men, in the 
belief that during the summer Hendricks could sell stock 
enough to pay back the loans. To Colonel Culpepper, 
Barclay gave a block of five thousand dollars’ worth of 
the stock as a bonus in addition to his commission for his 
work in securing options, and the colonel, feeling himself 
something of a capitalist, and being in funds from the 
spring sale of lots in College Heights addition, invested 
in new clothes, bought some farm products in Missouri, 
and went up and down the earth proclaiming the glories 
of the Sycamore Valley, and in May brought two car-loads 
of land seekers by stages and wagons and buggies to 
Sycamore Ridge, and located them in Garrison County. 
And in his mail when he came home he found a notice 
indicating that he had overdrawn his account in the bank 
five hundred dollars, and that his note was due for five 
hundred more on the second mortgage which he had given 
the previous fall. 

For two days he was plunged in gloom, and Barclay, 
observing his depression and worming out of the colonel 
the cause, persuaded General Hendricks to put the over¬ 
draft and the second mortgage note into one note for a 
thousand dollars plus the interest for sixty days until the 
colonel could make a turn, and after that the colonel 
was happy again. He forgot for a moment the responsi- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


129 


bility of wealth and engaged himself in the task of mak¬ 
ing the Memorial Day celebration in Sycamore Ridge the 
greatest event in the history of the town. Though there 
were only five soldiers’ graves to decorate, the longest pro¬ 
cession Garrison County had ever known wound up the 
hill to the cemetery, and Colonel Martin Culpepper in his 
red sash, with his Knights Templar hat on, riding up and 
down the line on an iron-gray stallion, was easily the 
most notable figure in the spectacle. Even General Hen¬ 
dricks, revived by the pomp of the occasion, heading the 
troop of ten veterans of the Mexican War, and General 
Ward, in his regimentals, were inconsequential compared 
with the colonel. And his oration at the graves, after 
the bugles had blown taps, kept the multitude in tears for 
half an hour. John Barclay’s address at the Opera House 
that afternoon-—the address on “The Soldier and the 
Scholar”—was so completely overshadowed by the colo¬ 
nel’s oratorical flight that Jane teased her husband about 
the eclipse for a month, and never could make him laugh. 
Moreover, the Banner that week printed the colonel’s ora¬ 
tion in full and referred to John’s address as u a few sen¬ 
sible remarks by Hon. John Barclay on the duty of 
scholarship in times of peace.” But here is the strange 
thing about it — those who read the colonel’s oration 
were not moved by it; the charm of the voice and the 
spell of the tall, handsome, vigorous man and the emotion 
of the occasion were needed to make the colonel’s oratory 
move one. Still, opinions differ even about so palpable 
a proposition as the ephemeral nature of the colonel’s 
oratory. For the Banner that week pronounced it one of 
the classic oratorical gems of American eloquence, and 
the editor thereof brought a dozen copies of the paper 
under his arm when he climbed the hill to Lincoln 
Avenue the following Sunday night, and presented them 
to the women of the Culpepper household, whom he was 
punctilious to call “the ladies,” and he assured Miss 
Molly and Mistress Culpepper — he was nice about those 
titles also—that their father and husband had a great 
future before him in the forum. 


130 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


It may be well to pause here and present so punctilious 
a gentleman as Adrian Pericles Brownwell to the reader 
somewhat more formally than he has been introduced. 
For he will appear in this story many times. In the first 
place lie wore mustaches — chestnut-coloured mustaches 
— that drooped rather gracefully from his lip to his jaw, 
and thence over his coat lapels ; in the second place he 
always wore gloves, and never was without a flower in 
his long frock-coat; and thirdly he clicked his cane on 
the sidewalk so regularly that his approach was heralded, 
and the company was prepared for the coming of a serious, 
rather nervous, fiery man, a stickler for his social dues ; 
and finally in those days, those sombre days of Sycamore 
Ridge after the panic of ’73, when men had to go to the 
post-office to get their ten-dollar bills changed, Brownwell 
had the money to support the character he assumed. He 
had come to the Ridge from the South, — from that part 
of the South that carried its pistol in its hip pocket and 
made a large and serious matter of its honour, — that was 
obvious; lie had paid Ezra Lane two thousand dollars for 
the Banner , that was a matter of record; and he had 
marched with some grandeur into General Hendricks’ 
bank one Saturday and had clinked out live thousand 
dollars in gold on the marble slab at the teller’s window, 
and that was a matter attested to by a crowd of wit¬ 
nesses. Watts McIIurdie used to say that more people 
saw that deposit than could be packed into the front 
room of the bank with a collar stuffier. 

But why Adrian Brownwell had come to the Ridge, and 
where he had made his money — there myth and fable enter 
into the composition of the narrative, and one man’s 
opinion is as good as another’s. Curiously enough, all who 
testify claim that they speak by the authority of Mr. 
Brownwell himself. But he was a versatile and obliging 
gentleman withal, so it is not unlikely that all those who 
assembled him from the uttermost parts of the earth into 
Sycamore Ridge for all the reasons in the longer catechism, 
are telling the simple truth as they have reason to believe 
it. What men know of a certainty is that he came, that 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


131 


he hired the bridal chamber of the Thayer House for a 
year, and that he contested John Barclay’s right to be 
known as the glass of fashion and the mould of form in 
Garrison County for thirty long years, and then — but 
that is looking in the back of the book, which is manifestly 
unfair. 

It is enough to know now that on that Sunday evening 
after Memorial Day, in 1874, Adrian P. Brown well sat on 
the veranda of the Culpepper home slapping his lavender 
gloves on his knee by way of emphasis, and told the com¬ 
pany what he told General Beauregard and what General 
Beauregard told him, at the battle of Shiloh; also what 
his maternal grandfather, Governor Papin, had said to 
General Jackson, when his grandmother, then Mademoi¬ 
selle Dulangpre, youngest daughter of the refugee duke 
of that house, had volunteered to nurse the American 
soldiers in Jackson’s hospital after the battle of New 
Orleans ; also, and with detail, what his father, Congress¬ 
man Brownwell, had said on the capitol steps in December, 
1860, before leaving for Washington to resign his seat in 
Congress; and also with much greater detail he re¬ 
counted the size of his ancestral domain, the number of 
the ancestral slaves and the royal state of the ancestral 
household, and then with a grand wave of his gloves, and 
a shrug of which Madam Papin might well have been 
proud, “But ’tis all over; and we are brothers — one 
country, one flag, one God, one very kind but very busy 
God ! ” And he smiled so graciously through his great 
mustaches, showing his fine even teeth, that Mrs. Cul¬ 
pepper, Methodist to the heart, smiled back and was not 
so badly shocked as she knew she should have been. 

“ Is it not so ? ” he asked with his voice and his hands 
at once. “ Ah,” he exclaimed, addressing Mrs. Culpepper 
dramatically, “ what better proof would you have of our 
brotherhood than our common bondage to you? How¬ 
ever dark the night of our national discord — to-day, 
North, South, East, West, we bask in the sunrise of some 
woman’s eyes.” He fluttered his gloves gayly -toward 
Molly and continued : — 


132 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ * O when did morning ever break, 

And find such beaming eyes awake/” 

And so he rattled on, and the colonel had to poke his 
words into the conversation in wedge-shaped queries, and 
Mrs. Culpepper, being in due and proper awe of so much 
family and such apparent consequence, spoke little and 
smiled many times. And if it was “Miss Molly” this 
and “Miss Molly” that, when the colonel went into the 
house to lock the back doors, and “ Miss Molly ” the other 
when Mrs. Culpepper went in to open the west bedroom 
windows; and even if it was “Miss Molly, shall we go 
down town and refresh ourselves with a dish of ice¬ 
cream ? ” and even if still further a full-grown man 
standing at the gate under the May moon deftly nips a 
rose from Miss Molly’s hair and holds the rose in both 
hands to his lips as he bows a good night—what then? 
What were roses made for and brown eyes and long lashes 
and moons and May winds heavy with the odour of flowers 
and laden with the faint sounds of distant herd bells tin¬ 
kling upon the hills ? For men are bold at thirty-five, and 
maidens, the best and sweetest, truest, gentlest maidens 
in all the world, are shy at twenty-one, and polite to their 
elders and betters of thirty-five — even when those elders 
and betters forget their years ! 

As for Adrian P. Brownwell, he went about his daily 
task, editing the Banner , making it as luscious and efful¬ 
gent as a seed catalogue, with rhetorical pictures about as 
florid and unconvincing. To him the town was a veritable 
Troy — full of heroes and demigods, and honourables and 
persons of nobility and quality. He used no adjective ol 
praise milder than superb, and on the other hand, Lige 
Bemis once complained that the least offensive epithet he 
saw in the Banner tacked after his name for two years 
was miscreant. As for John Barclay, he once told Gen¬ 
eral Ward that a man could take five dollars in to Brown- 
well and come out a statesman, a Croesus or a scholar, as 
the exigencies of the case demanded, and for ten dollars 
he could combine the three. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


133 


Yet for all that Brownwell ever remained a man apart. 
No one thought of calling him “Ade.” Sooner would 
one nickname a gargoyle on a tin cornice. So the editor 
of the Banner never came close to the real heart of Syca¬ 
more Ridge, and often for months at a time he did not 
know what the people were thinking. And that summer 
when General Hendricks was walking out of the bank 
every hour and looking from under his thin, blue-veined 
hand at the strange cloud of insects covering the sky, and 
when Martin Culpepper was predicting that the plague 
of grasshoppers would leave the next day, and when John 
Barclay was getting that deep vertical crease between his 
eyes that made him look forty while he was still in his 
twenties, Adrian P. Brownwell was chirping cheerfully 
in the Banner about the “salubrious climate of Garrison 
County,” and writing articles about “ our phenomenal 
prospects for a bumper crop.” And when in the middle 
of July the grasshoppers had eaten the wheat to the 
ground and had left the corn stalks stripped like bean¬ 
poles, and had devoured every green thing in their path, 
the Banner contained only a five-line item referring to 
the plague and calling it a “most curious and unusual 
visitation.” But that summer the Banner was filled 
with Brownwell’s editorials on “ The Tonic Effect of the 
Prairie Ozone,” “ Turn the Rascals Out,” “ Our Duty to 
the South,” and “The Kingdom of Corn.” As a writer 
Brownwell was what is called “fluent” and “genial.” 
And he was fond of copying articles from the Topeka 
and Kansas City papers about himself, in which he was 
referred to as “the gallant and urbane editor of the 
Banner .” 

But then we all have our weaknesses, and be it said 
to the everlasting credit of Adrian Brownwell that he 
understood and appreciated Watts McHurdie and Colonel 
Culpepper better than any other man in town, and that he 
printed Watts’ poems on all occasions, and never referred 
to him as anything less than “our honoured townsman,' 
or as “ our talented and distinguished fellow-citizen,” 
and he never laughed at General Ward. But the best 


134 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


he could do for John Barclay — even after John had 
become one of the world’s great captains — was to wave 
his gloves resignedly and exclaim, “ Industry, thy name 
is Barclay.” And Barclay in return seemed never to 
warm up to Brown well. “ Colonel,” replied John to 
some encomium of his old friend’s upon the new editor, 
“ I’ll say this much. Certainly your friend is a prosper¬ 
ous talker I ” 


CHAPTER XI 


The twenty-fifth of July, 1874, is a memorable day in 
the life of John Barclay. For on that day the grasshop¬ 
pers which had eaten off the twenty thousand acres of 
wheat in the fields of the Golden Belt Wheat Company, 
as though it had been cropped, rose and left the Missouri 
Valley. They will never come back, for they are ploughed 
under in the larva every year by the Colorado farmers who 
have invaded the plains where once the “ hoppers ” had 
their nursery, but all this, even if he had known it, would 
not have cheered up John that day. For he knew that he 
owed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Eastern 
stockholders of the company, and he had not a dollar to 
show for it. He had expected to borrow the money needed 
for the harvesting in the fall, and over and over and over 
again he had figured with paper and pencil the amount of 
his debt, and again and again he had tried to find some 
way to pay even the interest on the debt at six per cent, 
which the bank had guaranteed. While the locusts were 
devouring the vegetation, he walked the hemp carpet that 
ran diagonally across his office, and chased phantom after 
phantom of hope that lured him up to the rim of a solution 
of the problem, only to push him back into the abyss. He 
walked with his hands deep in his trousers pockets and his 
head down, and as General Ward was out organizing the 
farmers in a revolt against the dominant party in the state, 
Barclay was alone most of the time. The picture of that 
barren office, with its insurance chromos, with its white, cob- 
web-marked walls, with its dirty floor partly covered with 
an “ X ” of red-bordered hemp carpet reaching from the 
middle to the four corners, the picture of the four tall un¬ 
washed windojvs letting in the merciless afternoon sun to 
fade the grimy black and white lithograph of William 

135 


136 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Lloyd Garrison above the general’s desk, never left John 
Barclay’s memory. It was like a cell on a prisoner’s mind. 

As he paced the room that last day of the visit of the 
grasshoppers, General Hendricks came in. His hair had 
whitened in the summer. The panic and the plague of the 
locusts had literally wrung the sap out of his nerves. Old 
age was pressing inexorably upon him, palsying his hands 
on its rack, tripping his feet in its helpless mazes. His 
dimmed eyes could see only ruin coming, coming slowly 
and steadily toward him. In the panic, it came suddenly 
and inspired fight in him. But this year there was some¬ 
thing diabolical in its resistless approach. So he shrank 
from his impending fate as a child trembles at some un¬ 
known terror. But Barclay did not swerve. He knew 
the affairs of the bank fairly well. He was a director who 
never signed the quarterly statement without verifying 
every item for himself. He had dreaded the general's 
visit, yet he knew that it must come, and he pulled toward 
the general a big hickory chair. The old man sank into 
it and looked helplessly into the drawn hard face of the 
younger man and sighed, “ Well, John ? ” 

Barclay stood before him a second and then walked 
down one arm of the “ X ” of the carpet and back, and up 
another, and then turned to Hendricks with : “ Now, don’t 
lose your nerve, General. You’ve got to keep your nerve. 
That’s about all the asset we’ve got now, I guess.” 

The general replied weakly: “I — I, I — I guess 
you’re right, John. I suppose that’s about it.” 

“ How do you figure it out, General ? ” asked Barclay? 
still walking the carpet. 

The general fumbled for a paper in his pocket and 
handed it to Barclay. He took it, glanced at it a moment, 
and then said : “ I’m no good at translating another man’s 
figures — how is it in short ? — Right down to bed-rock ?” 

Hendricks seemed to pull himself together and replied: 
“ Well, something like ten thousand in cash against seventy 
thousand in deposits, and fifty thousand of that time de¬ 
posits, due next October, you know, on the year’s agree¬ 
ment. Of the ten thousand cash, four thousand belong* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


137 


to Brownwell, and is on check, and you have two thousand 
on check.” 

“All right. Now, General, what do you owe ?” 

“ Well, you know that guarantee of your and Bob’s 
business — that nine thousand. It’s due next week.” 

“ And it will gut you ? ” asked Barclay. 

The old man nodded and sighed. Barclay limped care¬ 
fully all over his “ X,” swinging himself on his heels at the 
turns; his mouth was hardening, and his eyes were fixed 
on the old man without blinking as he said: “General—• 
that’s got to come. If it busts you — it will save us, and 
we can save you after. That has just absolutely got to be 
paid, right on the dot.” 

The old man could not have turned paler than he was 
when he entered the room, but he rose halfway in his 
chair and shook his leonine head, and then let his hands fall 
limply on his knees as he cried: “No—no, John — I 
can’t. I can’t.” 

Barclay put his hand on the back of the old man’s chair, 
and he could feel the firm hard grip of the boy through his 
whole frame. Then after a moment’s pause Barclay said: 
“General, I’m in earnest about that. You will either 
mail those dividend certificates according to your guaran¬ 
tee on the first, or as sure as there is a God in heaven I’ll 
see that you won’t have a dollar in your bank on the night 
of the second.” 

The old man stood gasping. The eyes of the two men 
met. Barclay’s were bold and green and blazing. 

“Boy! Boy! Boy!-—” the old man faltered. “Don’t 
ruin me ! Don’t ruin me — ” he did not finish the sentence, 
but sank into his chair, and dropped his face to his breast 
and repeated, “ Don’t, don’t, don’t,” feebly for a few times, 
without seeming to realize what he was saying. From 
some outpost of his being reenforcements came. For he 
rose suddenly, and shaking his haggard fist at the youth, 
exclaimed in a high, furious, cracking voice as he panted 
and shook his great hairy head : “No — by God, no, by 
God, no ! You damned young cut-throat — you can break 
my bank, but you can’t bulldoze me. No, by God —nol ” 


138 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


He started to leave the room. Barclay caught the old 
man and swung him into a chair. The flint that Barclay’s 
nature needed had been struck. His face was aglow as 
with an inspiration. 

“ hasten, man, listen! ” Barclay cried. “ I’m not going 
to break your bank, I’m trying to save it.” He knew that 
the plan was ripe in his head, and as he talked it out, some¬ 
thing stood beside him and marvelled at its perfection. 
As its inherent dishonesty revealed itself, the old man's 
face flinched, but Barclay went on unfolding his scheme. 
It required General Hendricks to break the law half a 
dozen ways, and to hazard all of the bank’s assets, and all 
of its cash. And it required him to agree not to lend a 
dollar to any man in the county except as he complied 
with the demands of the Golden Belt Wheat Company and 
mortgaged his farm to Barclay. The plan that Barclay 
set forth literally capitalized the famine that had followed 
the grasshopper in vasion, and sold the people their own 
need at Barclay’s price. Then for an hour the two men 
fought it out, and at the end Barclay was saying: “I am 
glad you see it that way, and I believe, as you do, that 
they will take it a little better if we also agree to pay this 
year’s taxes on the land they put under the mortgage. It 
would be a great sweetener to some of them, and I can slip 
in an option to sell the land to us outright as a kind of a 
joker in small type.” His brassy eyes were small and 
beady as his brain worked out the details of his plan. 
He put his hands affectionately on General Hendricks’ 
shoulders as he added, “You mustn’t forget to write to 
Bob, General; hold him there whatever comes.” 

At the foot of the stairs the two men could hear the 
heavy tread of Colonel Culpepper. As Hendricks went 
down the stairs John heard the colonel’s “ Mornin’, Gen¬ 
eral,” as the two men passed in the hallway. 

“Mornin’, Johnnie—how does your corporocity sa- 
gashiate this mornin’?” asked the colonel. 

Barclay looked at the colonel through little beady green 
eyes and replied, — he knew not what. He merely dipped 
an oar into the talk occasionally, he did not steer it, and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


139 


not until he emerged from his calculations twenty minutes 
after the colonel’s greeting did Barclay realize that the 
colonel was in great pain. He was saying when Barclay’s 
mind took heed: 44 And now, sir, I say, now, having forced 
his unwelcome and, I may say, filthy lucre upon me, the 
impudent scalawag writes me to-day to say that I must 
liquidate, must — liquidate, sir ; in short, pay up. I call 
that impertinence. But no matter what I call it, he’s 
going to foreclose.” Barclay’s eyes opened to attention. 
The colonel went on. 44 The original indebtedness was a 
matter of ten thousand — you will remember, John, that’s 
what I paid for my share of the College Heights property, 
and while 1 have disposed of some, — in point of fact sold 
it at considerable profit, — yet, as you know, and as this 
scoundrel knows, for I have written him pointedly to that 
effect, I have been temporarily unable to remit any sum 
substantial enough to justify bothering him with it. But 
now the scamp, the grasping insulting brigand, notifies me 
that unless I pay him when the mortgage is due, — to be 
plain, sir, next week, —he proposes to foreclose on me.” 

The colonel’s brows were knit with trouble. His voice 
faltered as he added: 44 And, John — John Barclay, my 
good friend — do you realize that that little piece of prop¬ 
erty out on the hill is all I have on earth now, except the 
roof over my head ? And may — ” here his voice slid into 
a tenor with pent-up emotion — 44 maybe the contemptible 
rapscallion will try to get that.” The colonel had risen 
and was pacing the floor. 44 What a damn disreputable 
business your commerce is, anyway! John, I can't afford 
to lose that property — or I’d be a pauper, sir, a pauper 
peddling organs and sewing-machines and maybe teaching 
singing-school.” The colonel’s face caught a rift of sun¬ 
shine as he added, 44 You know I did that once before I was 
married and came West — taught singing-school.” 

44 Well, Colonel — let’s see about it,” said Barclay, ab¬ 
sently. And the two men sat at the table and figured 
up that the colonel’s liabilities were in the neighbourhood 
of twelve thousand, of which ten thousand were pressing 
and the rest more or less imminent. At the end of their 


140 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


conference, Barclay’s mind was still full of his own affairs. 
But he said, after looking a moment at the troubled face 
of the big black-eyed man whose bulk towered above him, 
“Well, Colonel, I don’t know what under heavens I can 
do — but I’ll do what I can.” 

The colonel did not feel Barclay’s abstraction. But 
the colonel’s face cleared like a child’s, and he reached 
for the little man and hugged him off his feet. Then the 
colonel broke out, “May the Lord, who heedeth the 
sparrow’s fall and protects all us poor blundering children, 
bless you, John Barclay—bless you and all your house¬ 
hold.” There were tears in his e} 7 es as he waved a grand 
adieu at the door, and he whistled “ Gayly the Troubadour ” 
as he tripped lightly down the stairs. And in another 
moment the large white plumes were dancing in his eyes 
again. This time they waved and beckoned toward a sub¬ 
scription paper which the colonel had just drawn up when 
the annoying letter came from Chicago, reminding him of 
his debt. The paper was for the relief of a farmer 
whose house and stock had been burned. The colonel 
brought from his hip pocket the carefully folded sheet 
of foolscap which he had put away when duty called him 
to Barclay. He paused at the bottom of the stair, backed 
the paper on the wall, and wrote under the words set¬ 
ting forth the farmer’s destitution, “ Martin Culpepper — 
twenty-five dollars.” He stood a moment in the stairway 
looking into the street; the day was fair and beautiful; 
the grasshoppers were gone, and with them went all the 
vegetation in the landscape; but the colonel in his nankeen 
trousers and his plaited white shirt and white suspenders, 
under his white Panama hat, felt only the influence of the 
genial air. So he drew out the subscription paper again 
and erased the twenty-five dollars and put down thirty- 
five dollars. Then as Oscar Fernald and Daniel Frye 
came by with long faces the colonel hailed them. 

“ Boys,” he said, “ fellow named Haskins down in Fair- 
view, with nine children and a sick wife, got burnt out 
last night, and I’m kind of seeing if we can’t get him som& 
lumber and groceries and things. I want you boys,” the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


141 


colonel saw the clouds gathering and smiled to brush 
them away, “ yes, I want you boys to give me ten dollars 
apiece.” 

“ Ten dollars ! ” cried Fernald. 

“Ten dollars !” echoed Frye. “My Lord, man, there 
isn’t ten dollars in cash between here and the Missouri 
River! ” 

“ But the man and his children will starve, and his wife 
will die of neglect.” 

“ That’s the Lord’s affair — and yours, Mart,” returned 
Fernald, as he broke away from the colonel’s grasp ; “you 
and He brought them here.” Frye went with Oscar, and 
they left the colonel with his subscription paper in his 
hand. He looked up and down the street and then drew 
a long breath, and put the paper against the wall again and 
sighed as he erased the thirty-five dollars and put down 
fifty dollars after his name. Then he started for the bank 
to see General Hendricks. The large white plumes were 
still dancing in his eyes. 

But so far as Barclay is concerned the colonel never 
reached the bottom of the stairs, for Barclay had his desk 
covered with law-books and was looking up contracts. 
In an hour he had a draft of a mortgage and option to buy 
the mortgaged land written out, and was copying it for 
the printer. He took it to the Banner office and asked 
Brownwell to put two men on the job, and to have the 
proof ready by the next morning. 

Brownwell waved both hands magnificently and with 
much grace, and said : “ Mr. Barclay, we will put three 
men on the work, sir, and if you wi 1 ! do me the honour, I 
will be pleased to bring the proof up Lincoln Avenue to 
the home of our mutual friend, Colonel Culpepper, where 
you may see it to-night.” Barclay fancied that a compla¬ 
cent smile wreathed Brownwell’s face at the prospect of 
going to the Culpeppers’, and the next instant the man 
was saying : “ Charming young lady, Miss Molly ! Ah, 
the ladies, the ladies — they will make fools of us. We 
can’t resist them.” He shrugged and smirked and wiggled 
his fingers and played with his mustaches. “Wine and 


242 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


women and song, you know — they get us all. But as fox 
me — nc) wine, no song —but — ” he finished the sentence 
with another flourish. 

Barclay did what he could to smile good-naturedly and 
assent in some sort of way as he got out of the room. 
That night, going up the hill, he said to Jane : “ Brown- 
well is one of those fellows who regard all women — all 
females is better, probably — as a form of vice. He’s the 
kind that coos like a pouter pigeon when he talks to a 
woman.” 

Jane replied : “Yes, we women know them. They are 
always claiming that men like you are not gallant ! ” She 
added, “You know, John, he’s the jealous, fiendish kind 
— with an animal’s idea of honour.” They walked on in 
silence for a moment, and she pressed his arm to her side 
and their eyes met in a smile. Then she said : “ Doubt¬ 
less some women like that sort of thing, or it would perish, 
but I don’t like to be treated like a woman — a she-crea- 
ture. I like to be thought of as a human being with a soul.” 
She shuddered and continued : “But the soul doesn’t enter 
even remotely into his scheme of things. We are just 
bodies.” 

The Barclays did not stay late at the Culpeppers’ that 
night, but took the proofs at early bedtime and went 
down the hill. An hour later they heard Molly Culpepper 
and Brownwell loitering along the sidewalk. Brownwell 
was saying : — 

“ Ah, but you, Miss Molly, you are like the moon for — 

“ ‘ The moon looks on many brooks, 

The brook can see no moon but this.* 

And I — I am — ” 

The Barclays did not hear what he was ; however, they 
guessed, and they guessed correctly — so far as that goes. 
But Molly Culpepper did hear what he was and what he 
had been and what he would be, and the more she parried 
him, the closer he came. There were times when he forgot 
the “ Miss ” before the “ Molly,” and there were other 
times when she had to slip her hand from his ever so 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


143 


deftly. And once when they were walking over a smooth 
new wooden sidewalk coming home, he caught her swiftly 
by the waist and began waltzing and humming “ The Blue 
Danube.” And at the end of the smooth walk, she had to 
step distinctly away from him to release his arm. But 
she was twenty-one, and one does not always know how to 
do things at twenty-one — even when one intends to do 
them, and intends strongly and earnestly — that one would 
do at forty-one, and so as they stood under the Culpepper 
elm by the gate that night, — under the elm, stripped gaunt 
and naked by the locusts, — and the July moon traced the 
skeleton of the tree upon the close-cropped sod, we must 
not blame Molly Culpepper too much even if she let him 
hold her hand a moment too long after he had kissed it a 
formal good night; for twenty-one is not as strong as its 
instincts. It is such a little while to learn all about a 
number of important things in a big and often wicked 
world that when a little man or a little woman, so new to 
this earth as twenty-one years, gets a finger pinched in the 
ruthless machinery, it is a time for tears and mothering 
and not for punishment. And so when Adrian Brownwell 
pulled the little girl off her feet and kissed her and asked 
her to marry him all in a second, and she could only 
struggle and cry “ No, no!” and beg him to let her go — it 
is not a time to frown, but instead a time to go back to 
our twenty-ones and blush a little and sigh a little, and 
maybe cry and lie a little, and in the end thank God for the 
angel He sent to guard us, and if the angel slept — thank 
God still for the charity that has come to us. 

The next day John Barclay had Colonel Martin Cul¬ 
pepper and Lige Bemis in his office galvanizing them with 
his enthusiasm and coaching them in their task. They 
were to promise three dollars an acre, August 15, to 
every farmer who would put a mortgage on his land for 
six dollars an acre. The other three dollars was to cover 
the amount paid by Barclay as rent for the land the year 
before. They were also to offer the landowner a dol¬ 
lar and a half an acre to plough and plant the land 
by September 15, and another dollar to cultivate it 


144 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


ready for the harvest, and the company was to pay the 
taxes on the land and furnish the seed. Barclay had 
figured out the seed money from the sale of the mortgages. 
The man was a dynamo of courage and determination, and 
he charged the two men before him until they fairly 
prickled with the scheme. He talked in short hard sen¬ 
tences, going over and over his plan, drilling them to bear 
down on the hard times and that there would be no other 
buyers or renters for the land, and to say that the bank 
would not lend a dollar except in this way. Long after 
they had left his office, Barclay’s voice haunted them. 
His face was set and his eyes steady and small, and the 
vertical wrinkle in his brow was as firm as an old scar. 
He limped about the room quickly, but his strong foot 
thumped the floor with a thud that punctuated his words. 

They left, and he sat down to write a letter to Bob 
Hendricks telling him the plan. He had finished two 
pages when General Hendricks came in a-tremble and 
breathless. The eyes of the two men met, and Hendricks 
replied: — 

“It’s Brownwell — the fat’s in the fire, John. Brown 
well’s going! ” 

‘‘Going — going where? ” asked the man at the desk, 
blankly. 

“ Going to leave town. He's been in and given notice 
that he wants his money in gold day after to-morrow.” 

“Well — well! ” exclaimed Barclay, with his eyes star¬ 
ing dumbly at nothing on the dingy white wall before 
him. “ Well — don’t that beat the Jews? Going to leave 
town I ” He pulled himself together and gripped his 
chair as he said, “Not by a damn sight he ain’t. He’s 
going to stay right here and sweat it out. We need that 
four thousand dollars in our business. No, you don’t, 
Mr. Man — ” he addressed a hypothetical Brownwell. 
“ You’re roped and tied and bucked and gagged, and you 
stay here.” Then he said, “You go on over to the bank, 
General, and I’ll take care of Brownwell.” Barclay liter¬ 
ally shoved the older man to the door. As he opened it 
he said, “ Send me up a boy if you see one on the street.’* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


145 


In ten minutes Brownvvell was running up the stairs to 
Barclay’s office in response to his note. He brought a 
copy of the mortgage with him, and laid it before Barclay, 
who went over it critically. He found a few errors and 
marked them, and holding it in his hands turned to the 
editor. 

“ Hendricks says you are going to leave town. Why ? ” 
asked Barclay, bluntly. He had discovered even that 
early in life that a circuitous man is generally knocked off 
his guard by a rush. Brownwell blinked and sputtered a 
second or two, scrambling to his equilibrium. Before he 
could parry Barclay assaulted him again with : “ Starving 
to death, eh ? Lost your grip — going back to Alabama 
with the banjo on your knee, are you? ” 

“ No, sir — no, sir, you are entirely wrong, sir — entirely 
wrong, and scarcely more polite, either.” Brownwell 
paused a minute and added: “ Business is entirely satis¬ 
factory, sir—entirely so. It is another matter.” He 
hesitated a moment and added, with the ghost of a smirk. 
“ A matter of sentiment — for — 

“ ‘ The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, 

Is always the first to be touched by the thorns.’ ’* 

Brownwell sat there flipping his gloves, exasperatingly; 
Barclay screwed up his eyes, put his head on one side, and 
suddenly a flash came into his face and he exclaimed, 
“ Come off, you don’t mean it — not Molly ! ” 

The rejected one inclined his head. Barclay was about 
to laugh, but instead he said, “Well, you are not a quitter ; 
why don’t you go ahead and get her ? ” He glanced 
instinctively at his letter to Bob Hendricks, and as if to 
shield what he was going to say, put a paper over the 
page, and then the seriousness of the situation came over 
him. “You know women; cheer up, man — try again. 
Stick to it — you’ll win,” cried Barclay. The fool might 
go for so small a reason. It was no time for ribaldry. 
“ Let me tell you something,” he went on. His eyes 
opened again with a steady ruthless purpose in them, that 
the man before him was too intent on his own pose to see. 


146 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Barclay put a weight upon the white sheet of paper that 
he had spread over his letter to Bob Hendricks and then 
went on. u Say, Brownwell, let me tell you something. 
This town is right in the balance ; you can help.” Some¬ 
thing seemed to hold Barclay back, but he took the plunge. 
“You can stay here and help. We need men like you.” 
Then he took a blind shot in the dark before going on — 
perhaps to give himself another chance. “ Have you got 
any more of that buried money — I mean more than you gave 
General Hendricks — the kind that you dug up after the 
war and scratched the mould off the eagles ? ” 

Brownwell Hushed and replied, as he put one hand in his 
coat and the other, with his stick and hat and gloves, be¬ 
hind him : “ That is my affair, sir. However, 1 will say 
that I have.” 

“I thought so,” retorted Barclay. “Now look here, 
bring it to the Ridge. Here’s the place to invest it and now's 
the everlasting time. You jump in here and help us out, help 
build up the town, and there’s nothing too good for you.” 
Barclay was ready for it now. He did not flinch, but went 
on : “Also here’s your chance to help Colonel Culpepper. 
He’s to be closed out, and ten thousand would save him. 
You know the kind of a man the colonel is. Stay with 
the game, Mr. Man, stay with the game.” He saw Brown- 
well's eyes twitch. Barclay knew he had won. He added 
slowly, “ You understand ? ” 

Brownwell smiled benignly. Barclay looked nervously at 
the unfinished letter on the table. Brownwell waved his 
arms again dramatically, and replied : “ Ah, thank you 
— thank you. I shall play my hand out — and hearts 
are trumps — are they not ? ” And he went out almost 
dancing for joy. 

When the man was gone Barclay shuddered; his con¬ 
tempt for Brownwell was one of the things he prided him¬ 
self on, and the intrigue revolted him. He stood a moment 
at the window looking into the street absently. He became 
conscious that some one was smiling at him on the crossing 
below. Then automatically he heard himself say, “ Oh, 
Molly, can you run up a minute ? ” And a moment later she 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


147 


was in the room. She was a bewitching little body in her 
wide skirts and her pancake of a hat with a feather in it 
as she sat there looking at her toes that morning, with her 
bright eyes flashing up into his like rockets. But there were 
lines under the eyes, and the rims of the eyelids were al¬ 
most red — as red as pretty eyelids ever may be. Barclay 
went right to the midst of the matter at once. He did not 
patronize her, but told her in detail just the situation— 
how the Golden Belt Wheat Company’s interest must be 
met by the bank under its guarantee, or Bob and his father 
would be worse than bankrupts, they would be criminals. 
He put Bob always in the foreground. Barclay unfolded to 
her all the plans for going ahead with the work, and he told 
her what they were doing for her father by giving him 
employment. He marched straight up to the matter in 
hand without flinching. 

44 Molly,” he began without batting his eyes, 44 here is 
where you come in. That fellow Brownwell was up here 
this morning. Oh, you needn’t shiver — I know all about 
it. You had the honour of refusing him last night.” To 
her astonished, hurt face he paid no heed, but went on: 
44 Now lie’s going to leave town on account of you and pull 
out four thousand dollars he’s got in the bank. If he does 
that, we can’t pay our guarantee. You’ve got to call him 
back.” She flared up as if to stop him, but he went on : 
44 Oh, I know, Molly Culpepper — but this is no game of 
London Bridge. It’s bad enough, but it’s business — cold 
clammy business, and sometimes we have to do things in this 
world for the larger good. That man simply can’t leave 
this town and you must hold him. It’s ruin and perhaps 
prison to Bob and his father if he goes ; and as for your 
own father and mother — it makes them paupers, Molly. 
There’s no other way out of it.” He paused a moment. 

The girl’s face blanched, and she looked at the floor and 
spoke, 44 And Bob —when can he come back? ” 

44 1 don’t know, Molly—but not now—he never was 
needed there as he is now. It’s a life-and-death matter, 
Molly Culpepper, with every creature on earth that’s 
nearest and dearest to you — it makes or breaks us. 


148 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


It’s a miserable business, I know well — but your duty ia 
to act for the larger good. You can’t afford to send Bob 
to jail and your people to the poorhouse just because — ” 

The girl looked up piteously and then cried out: 44 Oh, 
John — don’t, don’t — I can’t. It’s awful, John—-I can't.” 

“ But, Molly,” he replied as gently as he could, 44 you 
must. You can’t afford to be squeamish about this busi¬ 
ness. This is a woman’s job, Molly, not a child’s.” 

She rose and looked at him a fleeting moment as if in 
search of some mercy in his face. Then she looked away. 
He stood beside her, barring her way to the door. 44 But 
you’ll try, Molly, won’t you — you’ll try ? ” he cried. She 
looked at him again with begging eyes and stepped around 
him, and said breathlessly as she reached the door : 44 Oh, 
I don’t know, John — I don’t know. I must think about 
it.” 

She felt her way down the stairs, and stopped a minute 
to compose herself before she crossed the street and walked 
wearily up the hill. 

That night at supper Colonel Culpepper addressed the 
assembled family expansively. 44 The ravens, my dears, 
the ravens. Behold Elijah fed by the sacred birds. By 
Adrian P. Brownwell, to be exact. This morning I went 
down town with the sheriff selling the roof over our heads. 
This afternoon who should come to me soliciting the pleas¬ 
ure of lending me money—who, I say, but Adrian P. 
Brownwell?” 

44 Well, I hope you didn’t keep him standing,” put in 
Buchanan. 

44 My son,” responded the colonel, as he whetted the 
carving knife on the steel — a form which was used more 
for rhetorical effect than culinary necessity, as there were 
pork chops on the platter, 44 my son, no true gentleman will 
rebuke another who is trying to lend him money. Always 
remember that.” And the colonel’s great body shook 
with merriment, as he proceeded to fill up the plates. 
But one plate went from the table untouched, and Molly 
Culpepper went about her work with a leaden heart. For 
the world had become a horrible phantasm to her, a place 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


141* 


of ionging and of heartache, a place of temptation and 
trial, lying under the shadow of tragedy. And whose 
world was it that night, as she sat chattering with her 
father and the man she feared, whose world was it that 
night, if this is a real world, and not the shadow of a 
dream? Was it the colonel’s gay world, or John’s golden 
world, or Ward's harmonious world, or poor little Molly’s 
world — all askew with miserable duties and racking 
heartaches, and grinning sneering fears, with the relent¬ 
less image of the Larger Good always before her ? Surely 
it was not all their worlds, for there is only one world. 
Then whose was it? God who made it and set it in the 
heavens in His great love and mercy only knows. Watts 
McHurdie once wrote some query like this, and the whole 
town smiled at his fancy. In that portion of his “ Com- 
plete Poetical and Philosophical Works” called “Frag¬ 
ments ” occur these lines:— 

“ The wise men say 

This world spins ’round the universe of which it is a part j 

But anyway— 

The only world I know about is spun from out my heart,” 

And perhaps Watts, sewing away in his harness shop, 
had deciphered one letter in the riddle of the Sphinx* 


CHAPTER XII 


“ If I ever get to be a Turk or anything like that,” said 
Watts McHurdie,in October, two months after the events 
recorded in the last chapter had occurred, as he sat astrad¬ 
dle of his bench, sewing on a bridle, 44 I'm going to have 
one red-headed wife — but not much more’n one.” 

Colonel Culpepper dropped a 44 Why ? ” into the reflec¬ 
tions of the poet. 

Watts replied, 44 Oh, just to complete the set! ” 

The colonel did not answer and Watts chuckled: “1 
figure out that women are a study. You learn this one 
and pat yourself on the breast-bone and say, 4 Behold me, 
I’m on to women.’ But you ain’t. Another comes along 
and you have to begin at the beginning and learn ’em all 
over. I wonder if Solomon who had a thousand — more 
or less —got all his wisdom from them.” 

The colonel shook his head, and said sententiously, 
44 Watts — they liain’t a blame thing in it — not a blame 
thing.” The creaking of the treadle on Watt’s bench slit 
the silence for a few moments, and the colonel went on: 
“There can be educated fools about women, Watts Mc- 
Hurdie, just as there are educated fools about books. 
There’s nothing in your theory of a liberal education in 
women. On the contrary, in all matters relating to and 
touching on affairs of the heart — beware of the man with 
one wife.” 

McHurdie flashed his yellow-toothed smile upon his 
friend and replied, 44 Or less than one ? ” 

44 No, sir, just one,” answered Colonel Culpepper. 44 A 
man with a raft of wives, first and last, is like a fellow 
with good luck — the Lord never gives him anything else. 
And I may say in point of fact, that the man with no wife 
is like a man with bad luck — the Lord never gives him 
anything else, either ! ” The colonel slapped his right 

150 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


151 


hand on his knee and exclaimed: “Watts McHurdie—• 
what’s the matter with you, man ? Don’t you see Nellie’s 
all ready and waitin’ — just fairly honin’, and longin’, I 
may say, for a home and a place to begin to live ?” 

McHurdie gave his treadle a jam and swayed forward 
over his work and answered, “ Marry in haste — repent 
at leisure.” 

But nevertheless that night Watts sat with Nellie 
Logan on the front porch of the Wards’ house, watching 
the rising harvest moon, while Mrs. Ward, inside, was 
singing to her baby. Nellie Logan roomed with the 
Wards, and was bookkeeper in Dorman’s store. It was 
nearly ten o’clock and the man rose to go. “Well,” he 
said, and hesitated a moment, “well, Nellie, I suppose 
you're still waiting ? ” It was a question rather than an 
assertion. 

The woman put her hands gently on the man’s arms and 
sighed. “ I just can’t — not yet, Watts.” 

“Well, I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.” 
He smiled as he continued, “You know they say women 
do change sometimes.” 

She looked down at him sadly. “ Yes, I know they do, 
but some way I don’t.” 

There was a long pause while Watts screwed up his 
courage to say, “ Still kind of thinking about that 
preacher? ” 

The woman had no animation in her voice as she re¬ 
plied, “You know that by now — without asking.” 

The man sat down on the step, and she sat on a lower 
step. He was silent for a time. Then he said, “Funny, 
ain’t it ? ” She knew she was not to reply ; for in a dozen 
years she had learned the man’s moods. In a minute, dur¬ 
ing which he looked into his hat absent-mindedly, he went 
on : “ As far as I’ve been able to make it out, love’s a 
kind of a grand-right-and-left. I give my right hand to 
you, and you give yours to the preacher, and he gives his 
to some other girl, and she gives hers to some one else, like 
as not, who gives his to some one else, and the fiddle and 
the horn and the piano and the bass fid screech and toot 


152 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and howl, and away we go and sigh under our breaths and 
break our hearts and swing our partners, and it’s ever} r - 
body dance.” He looked up at her and smiled at his 
fancy. For he was a poet and thought his remarks had 
some artistic value. 

She smiled back at him, and he leaned on his elbows 
and looked up at her as he said quietly: “I’d like awful 
well, Nellie — awful well if you’d be ray partner for the 
rest of this dance. It’s lonesome down there in the 
shop.” 

The woman patted his hand, and they sat quietly for a 
while and then she said, “Maybe sometime, Watts, but 
not to-night.” 

He got up, and stood for a moment beside her on the 
walk. “Well,” he said at length, “I suppose I must be 
moving along — as the wandering Jew said.” He smiled 
and their eyes met in the moonlight. Watts dropped his 
instantly, and exclaimed, “You’re a terrible handsome 
girl, Nellie — did you know it?” He repeated it and 
added, “And the Lord knows I love you, Nellie, and 
I’ve said it a thousand times.” He found her hand 
again, and said as he put on his hat, “Well, good-by, 
Nellie — good-by — if you call that gone.” His hand¬ 
clasp tightened and hers responded, and then he dropped 
her hand and turned away. 

The woman felt a desire to scream ; she never knew 
how she choked her desire. But she rushed after him 
and caught him tightly and sobbed, “Oh, Watts — 
Watts — Watts McHurdie— are you never going to 
have any more snap in you than that ? ” 

As he kicked away the earth from under him, Watts 
McHurdie saw the light in a window of the Culpepper 
home, and when he came down to earth again five min¬ 
utes later, he said, “Well, I was just a-thinking how 
nice it would be to go over to Culpeppers’ and kind of 
tell them the news ! ” 

“They’ll have news of their own pretty soon, I ex¬ 
pect,” replied Nellie. And to Watts’ blank look she re¬ 
plied: “The way that man Brownwell keeps shining 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


153 


around. He was there four nights last week, and he’s 
been there two this week already. I don’t see what 
Molly Culpepper can be thinking of.” 

So they deferred the visit to the Culpeppers’, and in 
due time Watts McHurdie flitted down Lincoln Avenue 
and felt himself wafted along Main Street as far in the 
clouds as a mortal may be. And though it was nearly 
midnight, he brought out his accordion and sat playing 
it, beating time with his left foot, and in his closed eyes 
seeing visions that by all the rights of this game of life 
should come only to youth. And the guests in the 
Thayer House next morning asked, “ Well, for heaven’s 
sake, who was that playing ‘ Silver Threads among the 
Gold’ along there about midnight ? — he surely must know 
it by this time.” 

And Adrian Brownwell, sitting on the Culpepper ve¬ 
randa the next night but one, said : “ Colonel, your har¬ 
ness-maker friend is a musical artist. The other night 
when I came in I heard him twanging his lute — 4 The 
Harp that once through Tara’s Hall ’; you know, Colonel.” 

And John Barclay closed his letter to Bob Hendricks : 
“Well, Bob, as I sit here with fifty letters written this 
evening and ready to mail, and the blessed knowledge 
that we have 18,000 acres of winter wheat all planted if 
not paid for, I can hear old Watts wheezing away on his 
accordion in his shop down street. Poor old Watts, it’s a 
pity that man hasn’t the acquisitive faculty — he could 
turn that talent into enough to keep him all his days. 
Poor old Watts ! ” 

And Molly Culpepper, sitting in her bedroom chew¬ 
ing her penholder, finally wrote this : “Watts McHurdie 
went sailing by the house to-night, coming home from 
the Wards’, where he was making his regular call on 
Nellie. You know what a mouse-like little walk he has, 
scratching along the sidewalk so demurely ; but to-night, 
after he passed our place I heard him actually break into 
a hippety-hop, and as I was sitting on the veranda, I 
could hear him clicking clear down to the new stone 
walk in front of the post-office.” Oho, Molly Culpepper, 


154 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


you said “as I was sitting on the veranda”; that is of 
course the truth, but not the whole truth; what you 
might have said was “ as we were sitting on the veran¬ 
da,” and “as we were talking of what I like” and 
“ what you like,” and of “ what I think ” and “ what you 
think,” and as “ I was listening to war tales from a South¬ 
ern soldier,” and as “ I was finding it on the whole rather 
a tiresome business ” ; those things you might have writ¬ 
ten, Molly Culpepper, but you did not. And was it a 
twinge or a prick or a sharp reproachful stab of your con¬ 
science that made you chew the tip of your penholder 
into shreds and then madly write down this : — 

“ Bob, I don’t know what is coming over me ; but some 
way your letters seem so far away, and it lias been such a 
long time since I saw you, a whole lonesome year, and 
Bob dear, I am so weak and so unworthy of you; I know 
it, oh, I know it. But I feel to-night that I must tell you 
something right from my heart. It is this, dear: no 
matter what may happen, I want you to know that I must 
always love you better than any one else in all the world. 
I seem so young and foolish, and life is so long and the 
world is so big — so big and you are so far away. But, 
Bob dear, my good true bo}q don’t forget this that I tell 
you to-night, that through all time and all eternity the 
innermost part of my heart must always be yours. No 
matter what happens to you and me in the course of life 
in the big world — you must never forget what I have 
written here to-night.” 

And these words, for some strange reason, were burned 
on the man’s soul; though she had written him fonder ones, 
which passed from him with the years. The other words 
of the letter fell into his eyes and were consumed there, 
so he does not remember that she also wrote that night: 
“ I have just been standing at my bedroom window, look¬ 
ing out over the town. It is quiet as the graveyard, save 
for the murmur of the waters falling over the dam. And 
I cannot tell whether it is fancy or whether it is real, but 
now and then there comes to me a faint hint of music,— 
it sounds almost like Watts’ accordion, but of course it 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


155 


cannot be at this unholy hour, and the tune it makes me 
think of some way is ‘Silver Threads among the Gold.’ 
Isn’t it odd that I should hear that song, and yet not hear 
it* and have it running through my mind? ” 

And thus the town heard Watts McHurdie’s song of 
triumph — the chortle that every male creature of the 
human kind instinctively lets out when he has found favour 
in some woman’s eyes, that men have let out since Lemech 
sang of victory over the young man to Adah and Zillah! 
And in all the town no one knew what it meant. For the 
accordion is not essentially an instrument of passion. So 
the episode ended, and another day came in. And all that 
is left to mark for this world that night of triumph —-and 
that mark soon will bleach into oblivion — are the verses 
entitled “ Love at Sunset,” of which Colonel Martin Cul¬ 
pepper, the poet’s biographer, writes in that chapter “ At 
Hymen’s Altar,” referred to before: “This poem was 
written October 14, 1874, on the occasion of the poet’s 
engagement to Miss Nellie Logan, who afterward became 
his wife. By many competent critics, including no less a 
personage than Hon. John Barela}', president of the Na¬ 
tional Provisions Company, this poem is deemed one of 
Mr. McHurdie’s noblest achievements, ranking second 
only to the great song that gave him national fame.” 

And it should be set down as an integral part of this 
narrative that John Barclay first read the verses “ Love 
at Sunset ” in the Banner , two weeks after the night of 
their composition, as he was finishing a campaign for the 
Fifth Parallel bonds. He picked up the Banner one even¬ 
ing at twilight in a house in Pleasant township, and 
seeing Watts’ initials under some verses, read them at first 
mechanically, and then reread them with real zest, and so 
deeply did they move the man from the mooring of the cam¬ 
paign that seeing an accordion on the table of the best 
room in which he was waiting for supper, Barclay picked 
it up and fooled with it for half an hour. It had been 
a dozen years since he had played an accordion, and the 
tunes that came into his fingers were old tunes in vogue 
before the war, and he thought of himself as an old mam 


/ 


156 A CERTAIN RICH MAN 

though he was not yet twenty-five. But the old tunes 
brought back his boyhood from days so remote that they 
seemed a long time past. And that night when he ad¬ 
dressed the people in the Pleasant Valley schoolhouse, he 
was half an hour getting on to the subject of the bonds; 
he dwelt on the old days and spoke of the drouth of ’60 
and of the pioneers, and preached a sermon, with their 
lives for texts, on the value of service without thought of 
money or hope of other reward than the joy one has in 
consecrated work. Then he launched into the bond prop¬ 
osition, and when the votes were counted Pleasant town¬ 
ship indorsed Barclay’s plan overwhelmingly. For he 
was a young man of force, if not of eloquence. His evident 
sincerity made up for what he lacked in oratorical charm, 
and he left an impression on those about him. So when 
the bonds carried in Garrison County, the firm of Ward 
and Barclay was made local attorneys for the road, and 
General Ward, smarting under the defeat of his party in 
the state, refused to accept the railroad’s business, and the 
partnership was dissolved. 

“John,” said Ward, as he put his hands on the young 
man’s shoulders and looked at him a kindly moment, be¬ 
fore picking up his bushel basket of letters and papers, to 
move them into another room and dissolve the partnership, 
“ John,” the elder man repeated, “if I could always main¬ 
tain such a faith in God as you maintain in money and 
its power, I could raise the dead.” 

Barclay blinked a second and replied, “Well, now, Gen¬ 
eral, look here — what I don’t understand is how you ex¬ 
pect to accomplish anything without money.” 

“ I can’t tell you, John—but some way I have faith that 
I can — can do more real work in this world without both¬ 
ering to get money, than I can by stopping to get money 
with which to do good.” 

“ But if you had a million, you could do more good with 
it than you are doing now, couldn’t you ? ” asked Barclay. 

“ Yes, perhaps I could,” admitted the general, as he eyed 
his miserable little pile of worldly goods in the basket. 
“I suppose I could,” he repeated meditatively. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


157 


44 All right then, General,” cut in Barclay. 44 1 have no 
million, any more than you have ; but I’m going to get one 
•—or two, maybe a dozen if I can, and I want to do good 
with it just as much as you do. When I get it I’ll show 
you.” Barclay rose to lend the general a hand with his 
basket. As they went awkwardly through the door with 
the load, the general stopping to get a hold on the basket 
that would not twist his hand, he put the load down in 
the hall and said : 44 But while you’re getting that million, 
you’re wasting God’s ten talents, boy. Can’t you see that if 
you would use your force, your keenness, and persistence 
helping mankind in some way — teaching, preaching, lend* 
ing a hand to the poor, or helping to fight organized greed, 
you would get more of God’s work done than you will by 
squeezing the daylights out of your fellow-men, making 
them hate money because of your avarice, and end by dol¬ 
ing it out to them in charity? That’s my point, boy. 
That’s why I don’t want your railroad job.” 

They had dropped the basket in the bare room. The 
general had not so much as a chair or a desk. He looked 
it over, and Barclay’s eyes followed his. 44 What are you 
going to do for furniture ? ” asked the younger man. 

The general’s thin face wrinkled into a smile. 44 Well,” 
he replied, 44 1 suppose that if a raven can carry dry-goods, 
groceries, boots and shoes and drugs, paints and oils, — 
and certainly the ravens have been bringing those things 
to the Wards for eight years now, and they’re all paid for, 
— the blessed bird can hump itself a little and bring some 
furniture, stoves, and hardware.” 

Barclay limped into his room, while the general rubbed 
the dust off the windows. In a minute John came stum¬ 
bling in with a chair, and as he set it down he said, 44 Here 
comes the first raven, General, and now if you’ll kindly 
come and give the ravens a lift, they’ll bring you a table.” 
And so the two men dragged the table into the office, and as 
they finished, Ward saw General Hendricks coming up the 
stairs, and when the new room had been put in order, — a 
simple operation, — General Ward hurried home to help 
Mrs. Ward get in their dahlia roots for the winter. 


158 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


As they were digging in the garden, covering the ferns 
and wrapping the magnolia tree they had lately acquired, 
and mulching the perennials, Mrs. Mary Barclay came 
toward them buffeting the wind. She wore the long cowl- 
ish waterproof cloak and hood of the period — which she 
had put on during the cloudy morning. Her tall strong 
figure did not bend in the wind, and the schoolbooks she 
carried in her hand broke the straight line of her figure 
only to heighten the priestess effect that her approaching 
presence produced. 

“Well, children,” she said, a s she stood by the Wards 
at their work, 44 preparing your miracles?” She looked at 
the bulbs and roots, and smiled. “How wonderful that 
all the beauty of the flowers should be in those scrawny 
brown things; and,” she added as she brushed away the 
brown hair of her forties from her broad brow, “God prob- 
abl} r thinks the same thing when He considers men and 
their souls.” 

“And when the gardener puts us away for our winter’s 
sleep?” Ward asked. 

She turned her big frank blue eyes upon him as she 
took the words from his mouth, “ 4 And the last Adam 
was made a quickening spirit.’ ” Then she smiled sadly 
and said, “ But it is the old Adam himself that I seem to 
be wrestling with just now.” 

“In the children — at school?” asked the Wards, one 
after the other. She sighed and looked at the little 
troopers straggling along the highway, and replied, 44 Yes, 
partly that, too,” and throwing her unnecessary hood back, 
turned her face into the wind and walked quickly away. 
The Wards watched her as she strode down the hill, and 
finally as he bent to his work the general asked: — 

44 Lucy, what does she think of John? ” 

Mrs. Ward, who was busy with a geranium, did not 
reply at once. But in a moment she rose and, putting 
the plant with some others that were to go to the cellar, 
replied: “Oh, Phil — you know a mother tries to hope 
against hope. She teaches her school every day, and keeps 
her mind busy. But sometimes, when she stops in here 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


159 


after school or for lunch, she can’t help dropping things 
that let me know. I think her heart is breaking, Phil.” 

44 Does she know abou; the wheat deal — I mean about 
the way he has made the farmers sign that mortgage by 
cutting them off from borrowing money at the bank ? ” 

44 Not all of it—but I think she suspects,” replied the wife. 

44 Did you know, dear,” said the general, as he put the 
plants in the barrow to wheel them to the cellar, 44 that I 
ran across something to-day — it may be all suspicion, and 
I don’t want to wrong John—-but Mart Culpepper, God 
bless his big innocent heart, let something slip — well, it 
was John, I think, who arranged for that loan of ten 
thousand from Brownwell to Mart. Though why he 
didn’t get it at the bank, I don’t know. But John had 
some reason. Things look mighty crooked there at the 
bank. I know this — Mart says that Brownwell lent him 
the money, and Mart lent it to the bank for a month there 
in August, while he was holding the Chicago fellow in 
the air.” 

Mrs. Ward sat down on the front steps of the porch, 
and exclaimed:—- 

44 Well, Phil Ward — that’s why the Culpeppers are so 
nice to Brownwell. Honestly, Phil, the last time I was 
over Mrs. Culpepper nearly talked her head off to me and 
at Molly about what a fine man he is, and told all about 
his family, and connections — he’s related to the angel 
Gabriel on his mother’s side,” she laughed, 44 and he’s own 
cousin to St. Peter through the Brown wells.” 

44 Oh, I guess they’re innocent enough about it — they 
aren’t mercenary,” interrupted the general. 

44 Oh, no,” replied Mrs Ward, 44 never in the world; but 
he’s been good to them and he’s of their stock — and it’s 
only natural.” 

44 Yes, probably/' replied the general, and asked, 44 Does 
she intend to marry nim, do you think ? ” Mrs. Ward 
was sorting some dahlia roots on the wheelbarrow and did 
not reply at once. 44 Do you suppose they’re engaged ? ” 
repeated the general. 

44 1 often wonder,” she returned, still at her task. Then 


A UUKTAIJN BiCti MAN 


1DU 

she rose, holding a bulb in her hands, and said: a 

funny kind of relation. Her father and mother egging 
her on — and you know that kind of a man ; give him an 
inch and he’ll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got.” 
She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. 
44 Those are the nice big yellow ones I’nisaving for Mrs. Bar¬ 
clay. But I’m sure of one thing, Molly has no notion of 
marrying Brownwell.” She continued : 44 Molly is still in 
love with Bob. She was over here last week and had a 
good cry and told me so.” 

44 Well, why doesn’t she send this man about his busi¬ 
ness ? ” exclaimed the general. 

Mrs. Ward sighed a little and replied, 44 Because — 
there is only one perfect person in all the world, and that’s 
you.” She smiled at him and continued: 44 The rest of 
us, dear, are just flesh and blood. So we make mistakes. 
Molly knows she should; she told me so the other day. 
And she hates herself for not doing it. But, dearie — 
don’t you see she thinks if she does, her father and mother 
will lose the big house, and Bob will be involved in some 
kind of trouble ? They keep that before her all of the 
time. She says that John is always insisting that she be 
nice to Brownwell. And you know the Culpeppers think 
Brownwell is — well, you know what they think.” 

They worked along for a while, and the general stopped 
and put his foot on his spade and cried : 44 That boy —■ 
that boy — that boy ! Isn’t he selling his soul to the 
devil by bits ? A little chunk goes every day. And oh, 
my dear, my dear — ” he broke out, 44 what profiteth a man 
if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? Poor, 
poor John.” He fell to his work again, sighing, 44 Poor 
John, poor John ! ” So they talked on until the afternoon 
grew old. 

And while they were talking, John and General Hen* 
dricks were in Barclay’s office going over matters, and 
seeing where they stood. 

44 So he says seventy thousand is too much for the com¬ 
pany and me to owe?” said John, at the end of half an 
hour’s conference. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


161 


The general was drumming his fingers on the table 
nervously. “Yes — he says we’ve got to reduce that in 
thirty days, or he’ll close us up. Haven’t you got any 
political influence, somewhere in the East, John, — some of 
those stockholders, — that will hold this matter up till yov 
can harvest your crop next June ? ” 

Barclay thought a moment, with his hand in his chin, 
and then slowly shook his head. A bank inspector from 
Washington was several degrees higher in the work of 
politics than Barclay had gone. 

“Let me see — ” droned Barclay; “let me see. We 
can at least try scattering it out a little ; cut off, say, fifty 
thousand from me and the company and put it in the 
name of Lige — ” 

“ He’s on to Lige, we’ve got a hat full of Lige’s notes 
in there,” interrupted the general. 

“All right, then, drop Lige and put in the colonel — 
he’ll do that for me, and I’ll see if I can’t get the colonel 
to get Brownwell to accommodate us. He’s burning a 
good bit of the colonel’s stove wood these nights.” Bar¬ 
clay smiled, and added, “ And I’ll just put Bob in for a 
few thousand.” 

“But what’ll we do about those taxes?” asked the 
general, anxiously. “You know they’ve got to be paid 
before the first of the year, and that’s only six weeks off.” 

Barclay rose and paced the rug, and replied: “Yes, 
that’s so. I was going to make another note for them. 
But I suppose we oughtn’t to do it even under cover; for 
if he found out you had exceeded our loan right now — 
you know those fellows get ugly sometimes.” The young 
man screwed up his face and stood looking out of the 
window in silence for a long minute. Then he limped 
over to his chair and sat down as one who has a plan. 
“Say now, General; you know Gabe Carnine’s coming in 
as county treasurer right after the first of the year, and 
we will make him help us. You make your persona 7 
check for the nine thousand, and give it to the old cuss 
who’s in the county treasurer’s office now, with the descrip¬ 
tions of the land, and get the tax receipts; he’ll bring the 


M 


162 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


check back to the bank; you give him credit on his pass¬ 
book with the other checks, and just hold your own check 
out in the drawer as cash. If my check was in there, 
the inspector might drop in and see it, and cause a dis¬ 
turbance. When Gabe comes in, I’ll make him carry 
the matter over till next summer.” 

The transaction would cover only a few days, Barclay 
explained; and finally he had his way. So the Larger 
Good was accomplished. 

And later Adrian Brown well came into the office to 
say: — 

44 Mr. Barclay, our friend, Colonel Culpepper, confessed 
to me after some transparent attempts at subterfuge that 
my signing an accommodation note would help you, and 
do 1 understand this also will help our young friend, 
Robert Hendricks, whom I have never seen, and enable 
him to remain at his post during the winter ? ” 

John Barclay took a square hard look at Brown well, 
and got a smile and a faint little shrug in return, where¬ 
upon, for the Larger Good, he replied “ Yes,” and for the 
Larger Good also, perhaps, Adrian Brown well answered: 

“Well, I shall be delighted — just make my note for 
thirty days — only thirty days, you understand ; and then 

— well, of course if circumstances justify it. I’ll renew it.” 

Barclay laughed and asked, “Well, Mr. Brownwell, 

as between friends may I ask how 4 circumstances ’ are 
getting on ? ” 

Brownwell shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly 
as he answered: 44 Just so-so; I go twice a week. And 
—• ” he waved his gloves airily and continued, 44 What is 
‘t the immortal Burns sa} r s: 4 A man’s a man, for a’ that 
and a’ that ! ’ And I’m a man, John Barclay, and she’s a 
woman. And I go twice a week. You know women, sir, 
you know women — they're mostly all alike. So I think 

— ” he smirked complacently as he concluded— 44 1 think 
what I need is time — only time.” 

44 Luck to you,” said Barclay. 44 I’ll just make the note 
thirty days, as you say, and we can renew it from time to 
time.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


163 


Then Brownwell put on his hat, twirled his cane effu* 
sively, and bade Barclay an elaborate adieu. 

And ten days later, Molly Culpepper, loathing herself 
in her soul, and praying for the day of deliverance when 
it should be all over, walked slowly from the post-office 
up the hill to the house, the stately house, with its im¬ 
pressive pillars, reading this: “My darling Girl: John 
has sent me some more mortgages to sell, and they have 
to be sold now. He says that father has to have the 
money, and he and father have laid out work for me that 
will keep me here till the middle of January. John says 
that the government inspector has been threatening us 
with serious trouble in the bank lately, and we must have 
the money. He says the times have forced us to do cer* 
tain things that were technically wrong — though I guess 
they were criminally wrong from what he says, and we 
must have this money to make things good. So I am 
compelled to stay here and work. Father commands me 
to stay in a way that makes me fear that my coming home 
now would mean our ruin. What a brick John is to stay 
there and shoulder it all. But, oh, darling, darling, dar¬ 
ling, I love you.” 

There was more, of course, and it was from a man's 
heart, and the strange and sad part of this story is that 
when Molly Culpepper read the rest of the letter, her heart 
burned in shame, and her shame was keener than her sorrow 
that her lover was not coming home. 

So it happened naturally that Molly Culpepper went to 
the Christmas dance with Adrian Brownwell, and when 
Jane Barclay, seeing the proprietary way the Alaba¬ 
man hovered over Molly, and his obvious jealousy of all 
the other men who were civil to her, asked John why he 
did not let Bob come home for the holidays, as he had 
promised, for the Larger Good John told her the facts 
—-that there were some mortgages that had just come in, 
and they must be sold, so that the company could reduce 
its indebtedness to the bank. But the facts are not always 
the truth, and in her heart, which did not reason but only 
felt, Molly Culpepper, knowing that Brownwell and John 


164 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Barclay were in some kind of an affair together, feared the 
truth. And from her heart she wrote to her lover ques¬ 
tioning John’s motives and pleading with him to return, 
and he, having merely the facts, did not see the truth, and 
replied impatiently — so impatiently that it hurt, and there 
was temper in her answer, and then for over a week no 
letter came, and for over a week no reply went back to 
that. And so the Larger Good was doing its fine work ih 
a wicked world. 


CHAPTER XIII 


The spring sun of 1875 that tanned John Barclay’s face 
gave it a leathery masklike appearance that the succeed¬ 
ing years never entirely wore off. For he lived in the 
open by day, riding among his fields in three townships, 
watching the green carpet of March rise and begin to 
dimple in April, and billow in May. And at night he 
worked in his office until the midnight cockcrow. His 
back was bowed under a score of burdens. But his great¬ 
est burden was the bank; for it gave him worry; and 
worry weighed upon him more than work. It was in 
April — early April when the days were raw and cloudy, 
and the nights blustery and dreary — that Barclay sat in 
his office one night after a hard clay afield, his top-boots 
spattered with mud, his corduroy coat spread out on a chah 
to dry, and his wet gray soft hat on his desk beside him. 
Jane was with her parents in Minneola, and Barclay had 
come to his office without eating, from the stable where he 
left his team. The yellow lights in the street below were 
reflected on the mists outside his window, and the dripping 
eaves and cornices above him and about him seemed to 
mark the time of some eery music too fine for his senses, 
and the footfalls in the street below, hurrying footfalls of 
people shivering through the mists, seemed to be the drum 
beats of the weird symphony that he could not hear. 

Barclay drew a watch from the pocket of his blue flannel 
shirt, and looked at it and stopped writing and stood by 
the box-stove. He was looking at the door when he heard 
a thud on the stairs. It was followed by a rattling sound, 
and in a moment Adrian Brownwell and his cane were in 
the room. After the rather gorgeous cadenza of Brown- 
well’s greeting had died away and Barclay had his man in 
a chair, Barclay opened the stove door and let the glow of 
the flames fight the shadows in the room. 

. 165 


166 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ Well,” said Barclay, turning toward his visitor 
brusquely, “ why won’t you renew that accommodation 
paper for me again ? ” 

The Papins and the Dulangpres shrugged their shoul¬ 
ders and waved their hands through Brownwell rather 
nastily as he answered, “ Circumstances, Mi\ Barclay, 
circumstances ! ” 

“ You’re not getting along fast enough, eh? ” retorted 
Barclay. 

“Yes — and no,” returned Brownwell. 

“What do you mean?” asked Barclay, half divining the 
truth. 

“ Well — it is after all our own affair —but since you 
are a friend I will say this : three times a week — some¬ 
times four times a week I go out to pay my respects. 
Until November I stayed until nine, at Christmas we put 
on another hour ; now it is ten-thirty. I am a man, John 
Barclay—as you see. She — she is an angel. Very 
good. In that way, yes. But,” the Papins and Du¬ 
langpres came back to his face, and he shook his head. 
“But otherwise — no. There we stand still. She will 
not say it.” 

Barclay squinted at the man who sat so complacently in 
the glow o.f the firelight, with his cane between his toes 
and his gloves lightly fanning the air. “So I take it,” 
said John, “that you are like the Memorial Day parade 
several hours passing a given point ! ” 

“ Exactly,” smiled back Brownwell. He drew from his 
pocket a diamond ring. “ She will look at it; she will ad¬ 
mire it. She will put it on a chain, but she will not wear 
it. And so I say, why should I put my head in a noose 
here in your bank — what’s the use ? No, sir, John Bar¬ 
clay— no, sir. I’m done, sir.” 

Barclay knew wheedling would not move Brownwell. 
He was of the mulish temperament. So Barclay stretched 
out in his chair, locked his hands back of his head, and 
looked at the ceiling through his eyelashes. After a 
silence he addressed the cobwebs above him : “Supposing 
the case. VV ould a letter from me to you, setting forth 



A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


167 


the desperate need of this accommodation paper, not espe¬ 
cially forme, but for Colonel Culpepper’s fortunes and the 
good name of the Hendricks family — would that help 
your cause — a letter that you could show ; a letter,” Bar¬ 
clay said slowly, “ asking for this accommodation ; a letter 
that you could show to — to — well, to the proper parties, 
let us say, to-night ; would — that kind of a letter help 
— ” Barclay rose suddenly to an upright position and 
went on ; “ Say, Mr. Man, that ought to pretty nearly fix 
it. Let’s leave both matters open, say for two hours, and 
then at ten o’clock or so — you come back here, and I’ll have 
the note for you to sign — if you care to. How’s that ? ” 
he asked as he turned to his desk and reached for a pen. 

“ Well,” replied Brownwell, “ I am willing to try.” 

And so Barclay sat writing for five minutes, while the 
glow of the flames died down, and the shadows ceased 
fighting and were still. 

“Read this over,” said Barclay at length. “You will 
see,” he added, as he handed Brownwell the unfolded 
sheets, “ that I have made it clear that if you refuse to 
sign our notes, General Hendricks will be compelled to 
close the bank, and that the examination which will fol¬ 
low will send him to prison and jeopardize Bob, who has 
signed a lot of improper notes there to cover our transac¬ 
tions, and that in the crash Colonel Culpepper will lose all 
he has, including the roof over his head — if you refuse to 
help us.” (“ However,” snarled Barclay, at his conscience, 
“ I’ve only told the truth ; for if you take your money and 
go and shut down on the colonel, it would make him a 
pauper.”) 

With a flourishing crescendo finale Adrian Brownwell 
entered the dark stairway and went down into the street. 
Barclay turned quickly to his work as if to avoid medita¬ 
tion. The scratch of his pen and the murmur of the water 
cn the roof grew louder and louder as the evening waxed 
old. And out on the hill, out on Lincoln Avenue, the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew 
and beat upon that house — that stately house of a father’s 
pride and — 


168 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


At ten o’clock John Barclay heard a light footstep and 
a rattling cane upon the stair, and Brown well, a human 
whirligig of gay gestures, came tripping into the room. 
“A pen, a pen,” — he cried, “my kingdom for a pen.” 
He was tugging at his gloves as he spoke, and in the clat¬ 
ter that he made, Barclay found the blank note and pushed 
it toward the table’s edge to Brownwell, who put his ornate 
copy-book signature upon it with a flourish. 

When he had gone, Barclay wrote a note to Jane telling 
her of Molly’s engagement to Brownwell, and then he sat 
posting his books, and figuring up his accounts. It was 
after midnight when he limped down the stairs, and the 
rain had ceased. But a biting wind like a cruel fate came 
out of the north, and he hurried through the deserted 
street, under lowering clouds that scurried madly across 
the stars. But John Barclay could not look up at the 
stars, he broke into a limping run and head downward 
plunged into the gale. And never in all his life could he 
take a square look at Molly Culpepper’s diamond ring. 

As the spring deepened Bob Hendricks felt upon him 
at his work the pressure of two distinct troubles. One 
was his sweetheart’s attitude toward him, and the other 
was the increasing weakness of his father. Molly Cul¬ 
pepper’s letters seemed to be growing sad ; also they were 
failing in their length and frequency — the young man 
felt that they were perfunctory. His father’s letters 
showed a physical breakdown. His handwriting was un¬ 
steady, and often he repeated himself in successive let¬ 
ters. The sister wrote about her father’s weakness, and 
seemed to think he was working too hard. But the son 
suspected that it was worry rather than work, and that 
things were not going right in the bank. He did not know 
that the Golden Belt Wheat Company had sapped the 
money of the bank and had left it a husk, which at any 
time might crumble. The father knew this, and after the 
first of the year every morning when he opened the bank 
he feared that day would be the last day of its career. 

And so it fell out that “ those that look out of the 
windows ” were darkened, and General Hendricks rose up 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


169 


with the voice of the bird and was “afraid of that which 
was high ” and terrors were in the way. So on his head, 
the white blossom of the almond tree trembled; and one 
noon in March the stage bore to this broken, shaking old 
man a letter from Kansas City that ran the sword of fear 
into his heart and almost stopped it forever. It ran: — 

“ Dear General : I have just learned from talking with a banker 
here that an inspector is headed our way. He probably will arrive 
the day after this reaches you. Something must be done about that 
tax check of yours. The inspector should not find it in the drawer 
again. Once was all right, but you must get it out now. Put it in 
the form of a note. Make it Carnine’s note. He is good for twice 
that. Don’t bother him with it, but make it out for ninety days, and 
by that time we can make another turn. But that note must be in 
there. Your check won’t do any longer. The inspector has been 
gossiping about us up here — and about that check of yours. For 
God’s sake, don’t hesitate, but do this thing quick.” 

The letter was not signed, but it came in Barclay’s enve¬ 
lope, and was addressed by Barclay’s hand. 

The general fumbled with the pad of blank notes be¬ 
fore him for a long time. He read and reread Barclay’s 
letter. Then he put away the pad and tore the letter into 
bits and started for the front door. But a terror seized 
him, and he walked behind the counter and put his palsied 
hand into the box where he kept cancelled checks, and 
picked out one of Gabriel Carnine’s checks. He folded it 
up, and started for the door again, but turned weakly at 
the threshold, and walked to the back room of the bank. 

When it was done, and had been worked through the 
books, General Hendricks, quaking with shame and fear, 
sat shivering before his desk with jaws agape and the 
forged name gashed into his soul. And “ the strong men ” 
bowed themselves as he shuffled home in the twilight. The 
next day when the inspector came, “ all the daughters of 
music were brought low” and the feeble, bent, stricken 
man piped and wheezed and stammered his confused 
answers to the young man’s questions, and stood para¬ 
lyzed with unspeakable horror while the inspector glanced 
at the Carnine note and asked some casual question about 
it. When the bank closed that night, General Hendricks 


170 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


tried to write to liis son and tell him the truth, but he 
sat weeping before his desk and could not put down the 
words he longed to write. Bob Hendricks found that 
tear-stained letter half finished in the desk when lie came 
home, and he kept it locked up for years. And when he 
discovered that the date on the letter and the date on the 
forged note were the same, the son knew the meaning of 
the tears. But it was all for the Larger Good, and. so 
John Barclay won another game with Destiny. 

But the silver cord was straining, and morning after 
morning the old pitcher went to the fountain, to be 
battered and battered and battered. His books, which he 
kept himself, grew spotted and dirty, and day by day in 
the early spring the general dreaded lest some depositor 
would come into the bank and call for a sum in cash so 
large that it would take the cash supply below the legal 
limit, and that an inspector would suddenly appear again 
and discover the deficiency. Except Barclay the other 
directors knew nothing of the situation. They signed 
whatever reports the general or Barclay put before them; 
there came a time in April when any three of a dozen 
depositors could have taken every penny out of the bank. 
When the general was unusually low in spirits, Barclay 
sent Colonel Culpepper around to the bank with his 
anthem about times being better when the spring really 
opened, and for an hour the general was cheerful, but 
when the colonel went, the general always saw the axe 
hanging over his head. And then one morning late in 
April — one bright Sunday morning — the wheel of the 
cistern was broken, and they found the old man cold in his 
bed with his face to the wall. 

John Barclay was on a horse riding to the railroad—■ 
four hours away, before the town was up for late Sunday 
morning breakfast. That afternoon he went into Topeka 
on a special engine, and told a Topeka banker who dealt 
with the bank of Sycamore Ridge the news of the general’s 
death, and asked for five thousand dollars in silver to 
allay a possible run. At midnight he drove into the 
Ridge with the money, and the bank opened in the morn- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


171 


mg at seven o’clock instead of nine, so that a crowd might 
not gather, and depositors who came, saw back of Barclay 
a great heap of silver dollars, flanked by all the gold and 
greenbacks in the vault, and when a man asked for his 
money he got it in silver, and when Oscar Fernald pre¬ 
sented a check for over three thousand dollars, Barclay 
paid it out in silver, and in the spirit of fun, Sheriff Jake 
Dolan, who heard of the counting and recounting of the 
money while it was going on, brought in a wheelbarrow 
and Oscar wheeled his money to his hotel, while every 
loafer in town followed him. At noon Fernald came 
back with his money, and Barclay refused to take it. 
The town knew that also. Barclay did not step out of 
the teller’s cage during the whole day, but Lige Bemis 
was his herald, and through him Barclay had Dolan 
refuse to give Fernald protection for his money unless 
Fernald would consent to be locked up in jail with it. 
In ten minutes the town knew that story, and at three 
o’clock Barclay posted a notice saying the bank would 
remain open until nine o’clock that night, to accommodate 
any depositors who desired their money, but that it would 
be closed for three days following until after the funeral 
of the president of the bank. 

The next day he sat in the back room of the bank and 
received privately nearly all the money that had been 
taken out Monday, and several thousand dollars besides 
that came through fear that Fernald’s cash would attract 
robbers from the rough country to the West who might 
loot the town. To urge in that class of depositors, Bar¬ 
clay asked Sheriff Dolan to detail a guard of fifty deputies 
about the bank day and night, and the day following the 
cash began coming in with mildew on it, and Adrian 
Brownwell appeared that night with a thousand dollars of 
old bank-notes, issued in the fifties, that smelled of the 
earth. Thursday John limped up and down the street in¬ 
viting first one business man and then another into the 
bank to help him count cash and straighten out his 
balance. And each of a dozen men believed for years 
that lie was the man who first found the balance in the 


172 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


books of the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge^ 
after John Barclay had got them tangled. And when 
Barclay was a great and powerful man in the world, these 
men, being interviewed by reporters about the personality 
of Barclay, took pride in telling this story of his blunder¬ 
ing. But when Bob Hendricks reached Sycamore Ridge 
Thursday noon, confidence in the safety of the bank was 
founded upon a rock. 

So when the town closed its stores that afternoon and 
took the body of the general, its first distinguished citizen 
to die, out upon the Hill, and laid it to rest in the wild prairie 
grass, John Barclay and Jane, his wife, rode in the carriage 
with the mourners, and John stood by his friend through 
the long service, and when the body was lowered into the 
grave, the most remote thought in all the world from John’s 
mind was that he was responsible for the old man’s death. 

Bob Hendricks saw Molly Culpepper for the first time 
in twenty months, standing by her father with those who 
gathered about the general’s grave, and as soon as he could 
leave the friends who came home with him and his sister, 
he hurried to the Culpeppers’. As he left his home, he 
could see Molly sitting on the veranda behind one of the 
pillars of great pride. She moved down the steps toward 
the gate to meet him. It was dusk,— deep dusk, — but 
he knew her figure and was thrilled with joy. They 
walked silently from the gate toward the veranda, and 
the youth’s soul was moved too deeply for words. So 
deeply indeed was his being stirred, that he did not notice 
in his eagerness to bring their souls together how she was 
holding him away from her heart. 

The yellow roses were blooming, and the pink roses were 
in bud. They strayed idly to the side of the house far¬ 
thest from the street, and there they found the lilacs, heavy 
with blooms ; they were higher than the girl’s head, — a 
little thicket of them, — and behind the thicket was a rustic 
seat made of the grape-vines. He stepped toward the 
chair, pulling her by the hand, and she followed. He tried 
to gather her into his arms, but she slid away from him 
and cried, “No —no, Bob —no !” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


173 


“ Why— why—why ! what’s wrong?” gasped the 
youth. 

The girl sank on the seat and covered her face with her 
hands. He touched her shoulder and her hair with his 
finger-tips, and she shivered away from him. “ Oh, Bob — 
Bob, Bob! — ” she cried in agony, still looking at the 
grass before her. 

The young man looked at her in perplexity. “ Why, 
dear — why—why, darling—why, Molly,” he stammered, 
“ why — why— 

She rose and faced him. She gripped herself, and he 
could feel the unnatural firmness her voice as she spoke. 

“ Bob, I am not the little girl ycu left.” He put out his 
arms, but she shrank back among the lilacs; their perfume 
was in her face, and she was impressed with that odd feel¬ 
ing one sometimes has of having had some glimpse of it 
all before. She knew that she would say, “ I am not 
worthy—not worthy any more—Bob, do you under¬ 
stand ? ” 

And when he had stepped toward her again with piteous 
pleading face, — a face that she had never seen before, yet 
seemed always to have known,—she felt that numb sense of 
familiarity with it all, and it did not pain her as she feared 
it would when he cried, “Oh—God, Molly—nothing you 
ever could do would make you unworthy of me — Molly, 
Molly, what is it ? ” The anguish in his face flashed back 
from some indefinite past to her, and then the illusion was 
gone, and the drama was all new. He caught her, but she 
fought herself away. 

“Don’t — don’t!” she cried; “you have no right — 
now.” She dropped into the seat, while he stood over her 
with horror on his face. She answered the question of 
his eyes, rocking her body as she spoke, “ Bob — do you 
understand now ? ” He shook his head, and she went on, 
“ We aren’t engaged — not any more, Bob — not any more 
— never ! ” He started to speak, but she said: “I’m 
going to marry Mr. Brownwell. Oh, Bob — Bob, I told 
you I was unworthy — now do you understand ? ” 

The man turned his face starward a second, and then 


174 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


dropped his head. “ Oh,’' he groaned, and then sat down 
beside her at the other end of the bench. He folded his 
hands on his knees, and they sat silent for a time, and then 
he asked in a dead voice, “You know I love you — still, 
don’t you, Molly ? ” 

She answered, “Yes, that’s what makes it hard.” 

“ And do you love me ? ” he cried with eagerness. 

She sat for a minute without replying and then an- 
swered, “I am a woman now, Bob — a grown woman, and 
some way things are different.” 

They sat without speaking; then he drew a deep breath 
and said, “Well, I sup :ose I ought to go.” His head 
rested on his hand which was supported by an arm of the 
chair. He did not offer to rise. 

She rose and went to him, kneeling before him. She 
put her hands upon his shoulders, and he put them aside, 
and she felt him shudder. She moaned, and looked up at 
him. Her face was close to his, but he did not come 
closer. He stared at her dumbly, and kept shaking his 
head as if asking some mute question too deep for words. 
Then he put out his hand and took hers. He put it 
against his cheek and held it in both his own. She did 
not take her eyes from his face, but his eyes began to 
wander. 

“I will never see you again, Bob — I mean like this.” 
She paused. 

There was no life in his hands, and hers slipped away 
unrestrained. “ How sweet the lilacs smell to-night,” lie 
said as he drew in a deep breath. He leaned back that he 
might breathe more freely, and added as he sighed, “ I 
shall smell them through eternity — Molly.” Then he 
rose and broke off a spray. He helped her rise and said, 
“Well — so this is the way of it.” His handsome fair 
face was white in the moonlight, and she saw that his hair 
was thinning at the temples, and the strange flash of 
familiarity with it all came again as she inhaled the fra¬ 
grance of the lilacs. 

She trembled with some chill of inner grief, and cried 
vehemently, “Oh, Bob — my boy—my boy — say you 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


175 


hate me— for God’s love, say you hate me.” She came 
so close to him that she touched him, then she crumpled 
against the side of the seat in a storm of tears, but he 
looked at her steadily and shook his head. 

“ Come on, Molly. It’s too cool for you out here,” he 
said, and took her hand and walked with her to the steps. 
She was blinded by her weeping, and he helped her to the 
veranda, but he stopped on a lower step where his face 
was on a level with hers, and dropping her hand, he said, 
“Well, good night, Molly—good night — ” and as he 
half turned from her, he said in the same voice, “ Good- 
by.” 

He went quickly down the walk — a tall stalwart figure, 
and he carried his hat in his hand, and wiped his forehead 
as he went. At the gate he looked back and saw her 
standing where he had left her ; he could still hear the 
pitiful sobs, but he made no sign to her, and she heard him 
walking away under the elms into the night. When his 
steps had ceased she ran on tiptoe, holding her breath to 
silence her sobs, through the hall, up the stairs of the 
silent home to her room, and locked the door. When she 
could not pray, she lay sobbing and groaning through a 
long night. 


CHAPTER XIV 


The next morning John Barclay gave Robert Hen¬ 
dricks the keys to the bank. Barclay watched the town 
until nine o’clock and satisfied himself that there would be 
no run on the bank, for during the early part of the morn¬ 
ing young Hendricks was holding a reception in his office ; 
then Barclay saddled a horse and started for the wheat 
fields. After the first hours of the morning had passed, 
and the townspeople had gone from the bank, Robert 
Hendricks began to burrow into the books. He felt in¬ 
stinctively that he would find there the solution of the 
puzzle that perplexed him. For he was sure Molly Cul¬ 
pepper had not jilted him wantonly. He worked all the 
long spring afternoon and into the night, and when he 
could not sleep he went back to the bank at midnight, fol¬ 
lowing some clew that rose out of his under-consciousness 
and beckoned him to an answer to his question. 

The next morning found him at his counter, still worry¬ 
ing his books as a ferret worries a rat. They were be¬ 
ginning to mean something to him, and he saw that the 
bcnk was a worm-eaten shell. When he discovered that 
Erownwell’s notes were not made for bona fide loans, but 
'.hat they were made to cover Barclay’s overdrafts, he be¬ 
gan to find the truth, and then when he found that Colo¬ 
nel Culpepper had lent the money back to the bank that 
he borrowed from Brownwell, — also to save John’s over¬ 
drafts,—Bob Hendricks’ soul burned pale with rage. He 
found that John had borrowed far beyond the limit of his 
credit at the bank to buy the company’s stock, and that he 
had used Culpepper and Brownwell to protect his account 
when it needed protection. Hendricks went about his 
work silently, serving the bank’s customers, and greeting 

176 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


177 


his neighbours pleasantly, but his heart was full of a lust 
to do some bodily hurt to John Barclay. When John 
came back, he sauntered into the bank so airily that Hen¬ 
dricks could not put the hate into his hands that was in 
his breast. John was full of a plan to organize a commis¬ 
sion company, buy all of the wheat grown by the Golden 
Belt Wheat Company and make a profit off the wheat com¬ 
pany for the commission company. He had bargained with 
the traffic officers of the railroad company to accept stock 
in the commission company in return for rate concessions 
on the Corn Belt Railroad, which was within a few months’ 
building distance of Sycamore Ridge. 

As John unfolded his scheme, Bob eyed his partner al¬ 
most without a word. A devil back in some recess of his 
soul was thirsting for a quarrel. But Bob’s sane con¬ 
sciousness would not unleash the devil, so he replied: — 

“No—you go ahead with your commission company, 
and I’ll stick to the wheat proposition. That and the 
bank will keep me going.” 

The afternoon was late, and a great heap of papers of 
the bank and the company lay before them that needed 
their time. Bob brushed his devil back and went to 
work. But he kept looking at Barclay’s neck and imagin¬ 
ing his fingers closing upon it. When the twilight was 
falling, Barclay brought the portmanteau containing the 
notes into the back room and turning to the “ C’s ” pulled 
out a note for nine thousand dollars signed by Gabriel 
Carnine, who was then county treasurer. Barclay put it 
on the table before Hendricks and looked steadily at him 
a minute before saying, “Bob—see that note?” And 
when the young man answered, the other returned: “We 
had to do that, and several other things, this spring to 
tide us over. I didn’t bother you with it — but we just 
had to do it—or close up, and go to pieces with the 
wheat scheme.” 

Hendricks picked up the note, and after examining it a 
moment, asked quickly, “John, is that Gabe’s signature? ’ 

“No— I couldn’t get Gabe to sign it — and we had to 
have it to make his account balance.” 

N 


178 


A CERTAIN RICH MAJN 


“ And you forged his note, — and are carrying it ?” cried 
Hendricks, rising. 

“ Oh, sit down, Bob — we did it here amongst hands. 
It wasn’t exactly my affair, the way it got squared 
around.” 

Hendricks took the note to the window. He was 
flushed, and the devil got into his eyes when he came back, 
and he cried, “ And you made father do it ! ” 

Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hen¬ 
dricks and took the note from him and put it back into 
the portmanteau. Then Barclay replied: “No, Bob, I 
didn’t make your father — the times made your father. 
It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up 
on taking his job, that we hadn’t paid the taxes on the 
company’s land, though our check had been passed for it. 
When it came in, we gave the county treasurer credit on 
his daily bankbook for the nine thousand, but we held 
out the check. Do you see? ” 

“ Yes, that far,” replied Hendricks. 

“ Well, it’s a long story after that, but when I found 
Gabe wouldn’t accommodate us for six months by giving 
us his note to carry as cash until we could pay it, — the 
inspectors wouldn’t take mine or your father’s,—and our 
books had to show the amount of gross cash that the treas¬ 
urer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought 
it unwise to keep holding checks that had already 
been paid in the drawer as cash for that nine thousand, 
so we — well, one day he just put this note in, and worked 
it through the books.” 

Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at 
Barclay, and then said: “ John —this is mighty dangerous 
business. Are we carrying his account nine thousand 
short on our books, and making his pass-book balance ? ’* 

“ That’s ic, only — ” 

“ But suppose some one finds it out ? ” asked Hendricks. 

“ Oh, now, Bob, keep your shirt on. I fixed that. You 
know they keep two separate accounts, — a general main¬ 
tenance account and a bond account, and Gabe has been 
letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the vault and look 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


179 


after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in 
charge of the treasurer’s office and had the run of the 
bank, and I squared our account at the Eastern fiscal 
agency and in the bond account in the treasurer’s office, 
and fixed up the short maintenance account all with nine 
thousand dollars’ worth of old bonds that were kicking 
around the vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermeti¬ 
cally sealed so far as the treasurer and the bank are con* 
cerned.” 

“ So we can’t pay it back if we want to ? Is that the way, 
John?” asked Hendricks, his fingers twitching as he 
leaned forward in his chair. 

“Ah, don’t get so tragic about it. Some day when 
Gabe has calmed down, and wants a renomination, I’ll 
take him in the back room and show him the error that 
we’ve both made, and we’ll just quietly put back the 
money and give him the laugh.” There was a pause, and 
Barclay tilted his chair back and grinned. “ It’s all right, 
Bob — we were where we had to do it; the books balance 
to a 4 T ’ now — and we’ll square it with Gabe sometime.” 

“ But if we can’t — if Gabe won’t be — be — well, be 
reasonable ? What then ? ” asked Hendricks. 

“ Oh, well,” returned John, “ I’ve thought of that too. 
And you’ll find that when the county treasury changes 
hands in ’79, you’ll have to look after the bond account 
and the treasurer’s books and make a little entry to sat¬ 
isfy the bonds when they really fall due; then — I’ll 
show you about it when we’re over at the court-house. 
But if we can’t get the money back with Gabe or the 
next man, the time will come when we can.” 

And Bob Hendricks looked at the natty little man be¬ 
fore him and sighed, and began working for the Larger 
Good also. And afterwards as the months flew by the 
Golden Belt Wheat Company paid the interest on the 
forged note, and the bank paid the Golden Belt Wheat 
Company interest on a daily ledger balance of nine thou¬ 
sand, and all went happily. The Larger Good accepted 
the sacrifices of truth, and went on its felicitous way. 

After Barclay left the bank that night, Hendricks 


180 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


found still more of the truth. And the devil in the 
background of his soul came out and glared through the 
young man’s sleepless eyes as he appeared in Barclay’s 
office in the morning and said, before he had found a 
chair, “John, what’s your idea about those farmers’ 
mortgages? Are you going to let them pay them, or are 
you going to make them sell under that option that you’ve 
got in them? ” 

“Why,” asked Barclay, “what’s it to us? Haven’t 
the courts decided that that kind of an option is a sale — 
clear through to the United States Supreme Court?” 

“ Well, what are you going to do about it ?” persisted 
Hendricks. 

Barclay squinted sidewise at his partner for a few sec¬ 
onds and said, “ Well, it’s no affair of ours; we’ve sold all 
the mortgages anyway.” 

Hendricks wagged his head impatiently and exclaimed, 
“ Quit your dodging and give me a square answer—what 
have you got up your sleeve about those options?” 

Barclay rose, limped to the window, and looked out as 
he answered: “Well, Eve always supposed we’d fix it 
up some way to buy back those mortgages and then take 
the land we want for ourselves —• for you and me person¬ 
ally — and give the poor land back to the farmers if they 
pay the money we lent them.” 

“Well,” returned Hendricks, “just count me out on 
that. Whatever I make in this deal, and you seem to 
think our share will be plenty, goes to getting those farm-. 
ers back their land. So far as I’m concerned that money 
we paid them was rent, not a loan! ” 

Barclay dropped his hands in astonishment and gaped 
at Hendricks. 

“Well, my dear Miss Nancy,” he exclaimed, “when 
did you get religion ? ” 

The two men glared at each other a moment, and Hen¬ 
dricks grappled his devil and drew a long breath and 
replied: “ Well, you heard what I said.” And then he 
added: “I’m pretty keen for money, John, but when it 
comes to skinning a lot of neighbours out of land that you 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


181 


and every one says is going to raise thirty dollars’ worth 
of wheat to the acre this year alone, and only paying them 
ten dollars an acre for the title to the land itself — ” He 
did not finish. After a pause he added : “ Why, they’ll 
mob you, man. I’ve got to live with those farmers.” 
Barclay sneered at Hendricks without speaking and Hen¬ 
dricks stepped over to him and drew back his open hand 
as he said angrily, “Stop it — stop it, I say.” Then he 
exclaimed: “I’m not what you’d call nasty nice, John — 
but I’m no robber. I can’t take the rent of that land for 
nothing, raise a thirty-dollar crop on every acre of it, and 
make them pay me ten dollars an acre to get back the poor 
land and steal the good land on a hocus-pocus option.” 

“ ‘ I do not use the nasty weed, said little Robert Reed,’ ” 
replied Barclay, with a leer on his face. Then he added: 
“ I’ve held your miserable little note-shaving shop up by 
main strength for a year, by main strength and awkward¬ 
ness, and now you come home with your mouth all fixed 
for prisms and prunes, and want to get on a higher plane. 
You try that,” continued Barclay, and his eyes blazed at 
Hendricks, “ and you’ll come down town some morning 
minus a bank.” 

Then the devil in Bob Hendricks was freed for an exult¬ 
ant moment, as his hands came out of his pockets and 
clamped down on Barclay’s shoulders, and shook him till his 
teeth rattled. 

“Not with me, John, not with me,” he cried, and he 
felt his fingers clutching for the thin neck so near them, 
and then suddenly his hands went back to his pockets. 
“Now, another thing — you got Brown well to lend the 
colonel that money ? ” Hendricks was himself. 

Barclay nodded. 

“And you got Brownwellto sign a lot of accommodation 
paper there at the bank ? ” 

“Yes — to cover our own overdrafts,” retorted Barclay. 
“It was either that or bust — and I preferred not to bust. 
What’s more, if we had gone under there at one stage of 
the game when Browmvell helped us, we could have been 
indicted for obtaining money under false pretences — you 


182 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and I, I mean. I’m perfectly willing to stick my head 
inside the jail and look around,” Barclay grinned, “but 
I’ll be damned if I’m going clear inside for any man — not 
when I can find a way to back out.” Barclay tried to 
laugh, but Hendricks would not let him. 

“And so you put up Molly to bail you out.” Barclay 
did not answer and Hendricks went on bitterly: “ Oh, 
you’re a friend, John Barclay, you’re a loyal friend. 
You’ve sold me out like a dog, John — like a dog!” 

Barclay, sitting at his desk, playing with a paper-weight, 
snarled back : “ Why don’t you get in the market yourself, 
if you think I’ve sold you out ? Why don’t you lend the old 
man some money? ” 

“ And take it from the bank you’ve just got done robbing 
of everything but the wall-paper? ” Hendricks retorted. 

“ No,” cried Barclay, in a loud voice. “ Come off your 
high horse and take the profits we’ll make on our wheat, 
pay off old Brown well and marry her.” 

“And let the bank bust and the farmers slide? ” asked 
Hendricks, “ and buy back Molly with stolen money ? Is 
that your idea? ” 

“Well,” Barclay snapped, “you have your choice, so if 
you think more of the bank and your old hayseeds than 
you do of Molly, don’t come blubbering around me about 
selling her.” 

“ John,” sighed Hendricks, after a long wrestle — a final 
contest with his demon, “ I’ve gone all over that. And I 
have decided that if I’ve got to swindle seventy-five or a 
hundred farmers — most of them old soldiers on their 
homesteads — out of their little all, and cheat five hundred 
depositors out of their money to get Molly, she and I 
wouldn’t be very happy when we thought of the price, 
and we’d always think of the price.” His demon was 
limp in the background of his soul as he added: “ Here 
are some papers I brought over. Let’s get back to the 
settlement — fix them up and bring them over to the bank 
this morning, will you?” And laying a package care¬ 
fully on the table, Hendricks turned and went quickly out 
of the room. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


183 


After Hendricks left the office that May morning, Bar¬ 
clay sat whistling the air of the song of the “ Evening 
Star,” looking blankly at a picture of Wagner hanging 
beside a picture of Jay Gould. The tune seemed to re¬ 
store his soul. When he had been whistling softly for 
five minutes or so, the idea flashed across his mind that 
flour was the one thing used in America more than any 
other food product and that if a man had his money in¬ 
vested in the manufacture and sale of flour, he would have 
an investment that would weather any panic. The idea 
overcame him, and he shut his eyes and his ears and gripped 
his chair and whistled and saw visions. Molly Culpepper 
came into the room, and paused a moment on the threshold 
as one afraid to interrupt a sleeper. She saw the dapper 
little man kicking the chair rounds with his dangling 
heels, his flushed face reflecting a brain full of blood, his 
eyes shut, his head thrown far back, so that his Adam’s 
apple stuck up irrelevantly, and she knew only by the per¬ 
sistence of the soft low whistle that he was awake, clutch¬ 
ing at some day-dream. When she cleared her throat, he 
was startled and stared at her foolishly for a moment, with 
the vision still upon him. His wits came to him, and he 
rose to greet her. 

“ Well — well — why — hello, Molly — I was just figur¬ 
ing on a matter,” he said as he put her in a chair, and then 
he added, “ Well — I wasn’t expecting you.” 

Even before she could speak his lips were puckering to 
pick up the tune he had dropped. She answered, “No, 
John, I wanted to see you—so I just came up.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right, Molly—what is it? ” he returned. 

“ Well — ” answered the young woman, listlessly, “ it’s 
about father. You know he’s badly in debt, and some 
way — of course he sells lots of land and all, but you know 
father, John, and he just doesn’t — oh, he just keeps in 
debt.” 

Barclay had been lapsing back into his revery as she 
spoke, but he pulled himself out and replied: “Oh, yes, 
Molly — I know about father all right. Can’t you make 
him straighten things out ? ” 


184 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ Well, no. John, that’s just it. His money comes in 
so irregularly, this month a lot and next month nothing, 
that it just spoils him. When he gets a lot he spends it like a 
prince,” she smiled sadly and interjected: u You know he 
is forever giving away — and then while lie’s waiting he 
gets in debt again. Then we are as poor as the people for 
whom he passes subscription papers, and that’s just what 
I wanted to see you about.” 

Barclay took his eyes off Jay Gould’s picture long 
enough to look at the brown-eyed girl with an oval face 
and a tip of a chin that just fitted the hollow of a man’s 
hand; there were the smallest brown freckles in the world 
across the bridge of her nose, and under her eyes there 
was the faintest suggestion of dark shading. Youth was 
in her lips and cheeks, and when she smiled there were 
dimples. But John’s eyes went back to Jay Gould’s 
solemn black whiskers and he said from his abstraction, 
“ Well, Molly, I wish I could help you.” 

“ Well, I knew you would, John, some way; and oh, John, 
I do need help so badly.” She paused a moment and 
gazed at him piteously and repeated, u So badly.” But 
his eyes did not move from the sacred whiskers of his joss. 
The vision was flaming in his brain, and with his lips 
parted, he whistled “ The Evening Star ” to conjure it back 
and keep it with him. The girl went on: — 

“About that money Mr. Brownwell loaned father, John.” 
She flushed and cried, “Can’t you find some way for 
father to borrow the money and pay Mr. Brownwell — 
now that your wheat is turning out so well? ” 

The young man pulled himself out of his day-dream and 
said, “Well —why — you see, Molly— I — Well now, to 
be entirely frank with you, Molly, I’m going into a busi¬ 
ness that will take all of my credit — and every cent of 
my money.” 

He paused a moment, and the girl asked, “ Tell me, 
John, will the wheat straighten things up at the bank ? ” 

“ Well, it might if Bob had any sense — but he’s got a 
fool notion of considering a straight mortgage that those 
farmers gave on their land as rent, and isn’t going to make 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


185 


them redeem their land, — his share of it, I mean, — and 
if he doesn’t do that, he’ll not have a cent, and he couldn’t 
lend your father any money.” Barclay was anxious to get 
back to his “ Evening Star ” and his dream of power, so he 
asked, “Why, Molly, what’s wrong?” 

“ John,” she began, u this is a miserable business to talk 
about ; but it is business, I guess.” She stopped and 
looked at him piteously. “Well, John, father’s debt to Mr. 
Brownwell — the ten-thousand-dollar loan on the house 
— will be due in August.” The young man assented. 
And after a moment she sighed, “ That is why I’m to be 
married in August.” She stood a moment looking out of 
the window and cried, “ Oh, John, John, isn’t there some 
way out — isn’t there, John ? ” 

Barclay rose and limped to her and answered harshly : 
“Not so long as Bob is a fool — no, Molly. If he wants to 
go mooning around releasing those farmers from their 
mortgages — there’s no way out. But I wouldn’t care 
for a man who didn’t think more of me than he did of a 
lot of old clodhoppers.” 

The girl looked at the hard-faced youth a moment in 
silence, and turned without a word and left the room. 
Barclay floated away on his “Evening Star ” and spun 
out his dream as a spider spins his web, and when Hen¬ 
dricks came into the office for a mislaid paper half an hour 
later, Barclay still was figuring up profits, and making his 
web stronger. As Hendricks, having finished his errand, 
was about to go, Barclay stopped him. 

“ Bob, Molly’s been up here. As nearly as I can get at 
it, Brownwell has promised to renew the colonel’s mort¬ 
gage in August. If he and Molly aren’t married by then 
—no more renewals from him. Don’t be a fool, Bob; let your 
sod-busters go hang. If you don’t get their farms, some 
one else will! ” 

Hendricks looked at his partner a minute steadily, 
grunted, and strode out of the room. And the incident 
slipped from John Barclay’s mind, and the web of the spider 
grew stronger and stronger in his brain, but it cast a 
shadow that was to reach across his life. 


186 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


After Hendricks went from his office that morning, 
Barclay bounded back, like a boy at play, to the vision of 
controlling the flour market. He saw the waving wheat 
of Garrison County coming to the railroad, and he knew 
that his railroad rates were so low that the miller on the 
Sycamore could not ship a pound of flour profitably, and 
Barclay’s mind gradually comprehended that through rail¬ 
road rates lie controlled the mill, and could buy it at his leis¬ 
ure, upon his own terms. Then the whole scheme unfolded 
itself before his closed eyes as he sat with his head tilted 
back and pillowed in his hands. If his railroad concession 
made it possible for him to underbid the miller at the 
Ridge, why could he not get other railroad concessions 
and underbid every miller along the line of the Corn Belt 
road, by dividing profits with the railroad officials? Ashe 
spun out his vision, he could hear the droning voices of 
General Ward and Colonel Culpepper in the next room; 
but he did not heed them. 

They were discussing the things of the day, — indeed, the 
things of a fortnight before, to be precise, — the reception 
given by the Culpeppers to celebrate their silver wedding 
anniversary. The windows were open, and Barclay could 
hear the men’s voices, and he knew vaguely that they were 
talking of Lige Bemis. For Barclay had tactfully asked 
the colonel as a favour to invite Mr. and Mrs. Bemis to the 
silver wedding reception. So the Bemises came. Mrs. 
Bemis, who was rather stout, even for a woman in her 
early forties, wore black satin and jet ornaments, including 
black jet ear bobs of tremendous size. And Watts Mc- 
Hurdie was so touched by the way ten years under a roof 
had tamed the woman whom he had known of old as “ Happy 
Hallie,” that he wrote a poem for the Banner about the 
return of the “ Prodigal Daughter,” which may be found 
in Garrison County scrap-books of that period. As for 
Mr. Bemis, he went slinking about the outskirts of the 
crowd, showing his teeth considerably, and making it ob¬ 
vious that he was there. 

So as John Barclay rode his “Evening Star” to glory, in 
the next room General Ward turned to the colonel, who 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


18* 


stood puffing in the doorway of the general’s law-offico, 
44 Martin, did John Barclay make you invite that woman 
to your house — that Bemis woman ? ” 

The colonel got his breath slowly after climbing the 
stair, and he did not reply at once. But he smiled, and 
stood with his arms akimbo a few seconds before he spoke. 
44 Well now, General — since you ask it, I may as well con¬ 
fess it pointedly — I am ashamed to say he did ! ” 

Ward motioned the colonel to a seat and asked impa¬ 
tiently, “ Ashamed ? ” 

44 Well,” responded Culpepper, as he put his feet in the 
window ledge, “ she’s as good as I am — if you come down 
to that ! Why shouldn’t I, who pretend to be a gentleman, 
— a Virginia gentleman, I may say, sir, — why shouldn’t 
I be ashamed, disgraced, sir, disgraced in point of fact, that 
I had to be forced to invite any person in all God’s beauti¬ 
ful world to my home ? ” 

Ward looked at the colonel coldly a moment and then 
blurted out: “ Ah, shucks, sir — stuff and nonsense ! You 
know what she was before the war — Happy Hally ! My 
gracious, Martin, how could you? ” 

Martin Culpepper brought his chair down with a bang 
and turned squarely to Ward. “General, the war’s over 
now. I knew Happy Hally — and I knew the Red Legs she 
trained with. And we’re making senators and governors 
and state officers and indeed, I may say, prominent citizens 
out of them. Why not give Hally her show? You damn 
cold-nosed Yankee Brahmins — you have Faith and you 
have Hope, but you have no more Charity than a sausage- 
grinder.” The colonel rose, and cried with some asperity, 
“ General, if you’d preach about the poor less, and pray 
with ’em more, you’d know more about your fellow-men, 
sir! ” 

Perhaps this conversation should not have been set down 
here ; for it has no direct relation to the movement of this 
narrative. The narrative at this point should be hurrying 
along to tell how John Barclay and Bob Hendricks cleared 
up a small fortune on their wheat deal, and how that 
autumn Barclay bought the mill at Sycamore Ridge by 


188 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


squeezing its owner out, and then set about to establish 
four branches of the Golden Belt Wheat Company’s 
elevator service along the line of the new railroad, and 
how he controlled the wheat output of three counties the 
next year through his enterprise. These facts carry 
John Barclay forward toward his life’s goal. And while 
these two middle-aged gentlemen — the general and the 
colonel — were in the next room wrangling over the youth¬ 
ful love affairs of a middle-aged lady, a great dream was 
shaping in Barclay’s head, and he did not heed them. He 
was dreaming of controlling the wheat market of the 
Golden Belt Railroad, through railroad-rate privileges, and 
his fancy was feeling its way into flour, and comprehend¬ 
ing what might be done with wheat products. 

It was a crude dream, but he was aflame with it, and 
yet— John Barclay, aged twenty-five, was a young man 
with curly hair and flattered himself that he could sing. 
And there was always in him that side of his nature, so 
the reader must know that when Nellie Logan came to 
his office that bright summer morning and found him 
wrapped in his day-dream of power, she addressed herself 
not to the Thane of Wheat who should be King hereafter, 
but to the baritone singer in the Congregational choir, and 
the wheat king scampered back to the dream world when 
John replied to Nellie’s question. 

“ So it’s your wedding, is it, Nellie — your wedding,” he 
repeated. “Well, where does Watts come in ? ” And then, 
before she answered, he went on, “You bet I’ll sing at 
your wedding, and what’s more, I’ll bring along my limp¬ 
ing Congregational foot, and I’ll dance at your wedding.” 

“ Well, I just knew you would,” said the young woman. 

“So old Watts thought I wouldn’t, did he?” asked 
Barclay. “The old skeezicks— Well, well! Nellie, you 
tell him that the fellow who was with Watts when he was 
shot ten miles from Springfield isn’t going to desert him 
when he gets a mortal wound in the heart.” Then Bar¬ 
clay added: “You get the music and take it down to 
Jane, and tell her to teach me, and I’ll be there. Jane 
says you’re going to put old Watts through all the gaits. ,r 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


189 


He leaned back in his swivel chair and smiled at his 
visitor. He had a slow drawl that he used in teasing, and 
one who heard that voice and afterward heard the harsh 
bark of the man in driving a bargain or browbeating an 
adversary would have to look twice to realize that the 
same man was talking. A little over an hour before in 
that very room he had looked at Bob Hendricks from 
under wrinkled brows with the vertical line creased 
between his eyes and snarled, “Well, then, if you think 
she’s going to marry that fellow because I got him to 
lend the colonel some money, why don’t you go and lend 
the colonel some more money and get her back ? ” 

But there was not a muscle twitching in his face as he 
talked to Nellie Logan, not a break in his voice, not a 
ruffle of a hair, to tell her that John Barclay had broken 
with the friend of his boyhood and the partner of his 
youth, and that he had closed and bolted the Door of Hope 
on Molly Culpepper. He drawled on : “Jane was saying 
that you were going to have Bob and Molly for best man 
and bridesmaid. Ought you to do that? You know 
they— ” 

He did not finish the sentence, but she replied: “ Oh, 
yes, I know about that. I told Watts he ought to have 
Mr. Brownwell; but he’s as stubborn as a mule about 
just that one thing. Everything else — the flower girls 
and the procession and the ring service and all — he’s so 
nice about. And you know I just had to have Molly.” 

John slapped the arms of his chair and laughed. “As 
old Daddy Mason says, ‘Now hain’t that just like a 
woman ! ’ Well, Nellie, it’s your wedding, and a woman 
is generally not married more than once, so it’s all right. 
Go it while you’re young.” 

And so he teased her out of the room, and when Syca¬ 
more Ridge packed itself into the Congregational Church 
one June night, to witness the most gorgeous church wed¬ 
ding the town ever had seen, John opened the ceremonies 
by singing the “ Voice that breathed o’er Eden” most 
effectively, and Sycamore Ridge in its best clothes, rather 
stuffed and uncomfortable thereby, was in that unnatural 


190 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


attitude toward the world where it thought John Bar 
clay’s voice, a throaty baritone, with much affectation in 
the middle register, a tendency to flat in the upper register, 
and thick fuzz below “ C,” was beautiful, though John 
often remembered that night with unalloyed shame. He 
saw himself as he stood there, primped to kill, like a prize 
bull at a fair, bellowing out a mawkish sentiment in a 
stilted voice, and he wondered how the Ridge ever managed 
to endure him afterwards. 

But this is a charitable world, and his temperament was 
such that he did not realize that no one paid much atten¬ 
tion to him, after the real ceremony started. When the 
bride and the bridesmaid came down the aisle, Nellie 
Logan radiant in the gown which every woman in the 
church knew had come from Chicago and had been bought 
of the drummer at wholesale cost, saving the bride over 
fifteen dollars on the regular price — what did the guests 
care for a dapper little man singing a hymn tune through 
his nose, even if he was the richest young man in town? 
And when Molly Culpepper — dear little Molly Culpepper 
— came after the bride, blushing through her powder, and 
looking straight at the floor for fear her eyes would wander 
after her heart and wondering if the people knew — it was 
of no consequence that John Barclay’s voice frazzled on 
“ F ” ; for if the town wished to notice a man at that wed¬ 
ding, there was Watts McHurdie in a paper collar, with a 
white embroidered bow tie and the first starched shirt the 
town had ever seen him wear, badly out of step with the 
procession, while the best man dragged him like an un¬ 
willing victim to the altar; and of course there was the 
best man, —and a handsome best man as men go, — fair¬ 
skinned, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a good glow on his 
immobile face and rather sad eyes that, being in a man’s 
head, went boldly where they chose and where all the 
women in the town could see them go. So there were 
other things to remember that night besides John Barclay’s 
singing and the festive figure he cut at that wedding: 
there was the wedding supper at the Wards’, and the wedding 
reception at the Culpeppers’, and after it all the dance in 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


191 


1 

Culpepper Hall. And all the town remembers these 
things, but only two people remember a moment after the 
reception when every one was hurrying away to the dance 
and when the bridesmaid — such a sweet, pretty little 
bridesmaid — was standing alone in a deserted room with 
a tall groomsman — just for a moment — just for a moment 
before Adrian Brown well came up bustling and bristling, 
but long enough to say, “ Bob — did you take my gloves 
there in the carriage as we were coming home from the 
church?” and long enotigh for him to answer, “Why, 
did you lose them ? ” and then to get a good square look 
into her eyes. It was only a few seconds in the long 
evening—less than a second that their eyes met; but it was 
enough to be remembered forever ; though why — you 
say I It was all so commonplace; there was nothing in it 
that you would have thought worth remembering for a 
moment. “Bob, did you take my gloves?” “Why, did 
you lose them ? ” and then a glance of the eyes. Surely 
there are more romantic words than these. But when a 
man and a woman go in for collecting antiques in their 
dialogues, Heaven only knows what old rubbish you will 
find in their attics, scoured off and rebuilt and polished 
with secret tears until the old stuff glows like embers. 

And that is why, when the music was silent in Cul¬ 
pepper Hall, and the tall young man walked slowly home 
alone, as he clicked his own gate behind him, he brought 
from his pocket two little white gloves, —just two ordinary 
white gloves, — and held them to his lips and lifted his arms 
in despair once and let them drop as he stood before his 
doorstep. And that is why a girl, a little girl with the 
weariest face in the town, looked out of her bedroom 
window that night and whispered over and over to herself 
the name she dared not speak. And all this was going 
on while the town was turning over in its bed, listening to 
the most tumultuous charivari that Sycamore Ridge has 
ever known. 

Night after night that summer faithful Jake Dolan 
walked the streets of Sycamore Ridge with Bob Hendricks. 
By day they lived apart, but at night the young man 


192 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


often would look up the elder, and they would walk and 
walk together, but never once did Hendricks mention 
Molly’s name nor refer to her in any way ; yet Jake Dolan 
knew why they walked abroad. How did he know ? 
How do we know so many things in this world that are 
neither seen nor heard? And the Irish—they have the 
drop of blood that defies mathematics ; the Irish are the 
only people in the world whom kind Providence permits 
to add two and two together to make six. “ You say 
’tis four,” said Dolan, one night, as he and Hendricks stood 
on the bridge listening to the roar from the dam. “I say 
’tis six. There is this and there is that and you say they 
make the other. Not at all ; they make something else 
entirely different. You take your two and your two and 
make your four and try your four on the world, and it 
works — yes, it works up to a point; but there is some¬ 
thing left over, something unexplained ; you don’t know 
what. I do. It’s the other two. Therefore I say to 
you, Mr. Robert Hendricks, that two and two make six, 
because God loves the Irish, and for no other reason on 
earth.” 

So much for the dreams of Molly, the memories of Bob, 
and the vagaries of Mr. Dolan. They were as light as 
air. Butin John Barclay’s life a vision was rising — a 
vision that was real, palpable, and vital; a vision of wealth 
and power, — and as the days and the months passed, the 
shadow of that vision grew big and black and real in a 
score of lives. 


CHAPTER XV 


As June burned itselt gloriously into July, Robert 
Hendricks no longer counted the weeks until Molly Cul¬ 
pepper should be married, but counted the days. So three 
weeks and two days, from the first of July, became three 
weeks, then two weeks and six days, and then one week 
and six days, and then six days, five days, four days, three 
days; and then it became seventy-two hours. And the 
three threshing machines of the Golden Belt Wheat Com¬ 
pany were pouring their ceaseless stream into the com¬ 
pany’s great bins. The railroad was only five miles away, 
and Hendricks was sitting in his office in the bank going 
over and over his estimates of the year’s crop which was 
still lying in the field, — save the crop from less than two 
thousand acres that was harvested and threshed. From 
that he judged that there would be enough to redeem his 
share of the farmers’ mortgages, which in Hendricks’ mind 
could be nothing but rent for the land, and to pay his 
share of the bank’s fraudulent loans to the company — 
and leave nothing more. 

The fact that John expected to buy back the mortgages 
from Eastern investors who had bought them, and then 
squeeze the farmers out of their land by the option to buy 
hidden in the contract, did not move Hendricks. He saw 
his duty in the matter, but as the golden flood rose higher 
in the bins, and as hour after hour rolled by bringing him 
nearer and nearer to the time when Molly Culpepper 
should marry Adrian Brownwell, a temptation came to 
him, and he dallied with it as he sat figuring at his desk. 
The bank was a husk. Its real resources had been sold, 
and a lot of bogus notes — accommodation paper, they called 
it — had taken the place of real assets. For Hendricks 

193 


o 


194 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


to borrow money of any other institution as the officer of 
the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge would 
be a crime. And yet he knew that ten thousand dollars 
would save her, and his brain was wrought with a mad¬ 
ness. And so he sat figuring while the hours slipped by, 
trying to discount his future income from the wheat to 
justify himself in taking the money from the bank’s vaults. 
His figures did not encourage him. They showed him 
that to be honest with the farmers he might hope for no 
profit from that year’s crop, and with two years of failure 
behind him, he knew that to discount the next year’s crop 
would be nothing less than stealing. Then, strong and 
compelling, came the temptation to let the farmers fight it 
out with the Eastern investors. The temptation rocked the 
foundations of his soul. He knew it was wrong; he knew 
he would be a thief, if he did it, no matter what the law 
might say, no matter what the courts might adjudge. To 
Barclay what was legal was right, and what the courts 
had passed upon — that was legal. But Hendricks sat 
with his pencil in his hand, going over and over his 
figures, trying to silence his conscience. 

It was a hot afternoon that he sat there, and idly 
through his mind went the computation that he had but 
sixty-six more hours of hope, and as he looked at the 
clock he added, “ and thirty-eight minutes and twenty- 
seven seconds,” when Martin Culpepper came ambling 
into the back room of the bank. 

“ Robert,” began the colonel, with his eyes on the floor 
and his hands deep in his trousers pockets, “ I’ve just 
been talking to John.” The colonel rubbed his neck 
absent-mindedly and went on, “John’s a Yankee, Robert 
— the blue stripe on his belly is fast blue, sir; it won’t 
fade, change colour, or crock, in point of fact, not a damned 
bit, sir, not till the devil covers it with a griddle stripe, 
sir, I may say.” The colonel slouched into a chair and 
looked into Hendricks’ face with a troubled expression 
and continued, “That John certainly is Yankee, Robert, 
and he’s too many for me. Yes, sir, certainly lie’s got me 
up in the air, sir — up in the air, and as I may say a mile 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


195 


west, on that wheat deal.” Hendricks leaned forward 
unconsciously, and the colonel dropped both hands to his 
knees and leaned toward Hendricks. u Robert Hendricks,” 
asked the colonel, as he bored his deep black eyes into the 
younger man, “did you know about that option in the 
wheat land mortgage ? Answer me, sir ! ” 

“ Not at the time, Colonel,” returned Hendricks, and 
began, “but I —” 

“Well, neither did I. And I got half of those mort¬ 
gages myself. Lige and I did it all, sir. And Lige 
knew-—Lige, he says it’s legal, but I say it’s just common 
stealing.” Hendricks moistened his lips and sat with 
mute face gazing at the colonel. The colonel went on, 
“ And now the farmers have found it out, and the devil’s 
to pay, sir, with no pitch hot ! ” 

Hendricks cleared his throat and began, “Well, Colonel 
— I don’t know ; of course I — ” 

The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the 
younger, and cried, “ Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the moun¬ 
tain, snakes in the grass — you do know — you do know, 
sir. You know that to hold up the farmers of this county 
in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not to let 
them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging 
mortgage, and then to slip into that mortgage a blind 
option to sell for ten dollars an acre land that is worth 
three times that, is stealing, and so does John Barclay 
know that, and, worst of all, so does Martin Culpepper 
know that, and the farmers are finding it out—my neigh¬ 
bours and comrades that I helped to swindle, sir to rob, 
I may say — they know what it is.” 

The colonel’s voice was rising, and he stood glaring and 
puffing before the young man, shaking his head furiously. 
Young Hendricks was engaged in swallowing his Adam’s 
apple and blinking unsteadily, and just as he started to 
reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by the horn 
and was shaking it into submission, cried: “Yes, sir, 
Robert, that’s what I said, sir; those were my very 
words in point of fact. And,” he began as he sat down 
and sighed, “ what galls me most of all, Robert, is that 


196 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


John laughs at me. Here you’ve been gagging and gulp¬ 
ing and sputtering, boy, to keep down your conscience, 
and so I know — yes, Robert, I’m dead sure, I may say, 
that you’re all right; but John giggles — giggles, sir, 
snickers in point of fact, as though he had done some¬ 
thing smart in getting me to go out among my old soldier 
friends and rob ’em of their homesteads. He doesn’t care 
for my good name any more than for his own.” 

Hendricks drummed with his fingers on the desk before 
him. His blue eyes looked into nothing, and his mind’s 
eye saw the house of cards he had been dallying with 
totter and fall. He drew a deep breath before he looked 
up at the colonel, and said rather sadly: “Well, Colonel, 
you’re right. I told John the day after I came home that 
I wouldn’t stand it.” He drummed with his fingers for a 
moment before continuing, “ I suppose you got about 
half of those contracts, didn’t you ? ” 

The colonel pulled from his pocket a crumpled paper 
and handed it to Hendricks, “Here they are, sir—and 
every one from a soldier or a soldier’s widow, every one a 
homestead, sir.” 

Hendricks walked to the window, and stood looking out 
with his eyes cast down. He fumbled his Masonic watch- 
chann a moment, and then glancing at it, caught the colo¬ 
nel’s eye and smiled as he said : “ I’m on the square, Colo¬ 
nel, in this matter. I’ll protect you.” He went to the 
elder man and put his hands on his shoulder as he said: 
“ You go to your comrades and tell them this, Colonel, 
that between now and snowfall every man will have his 
land clear. But,” he added, picking up the list of the 
colonel’s contracts, “ don’t mention me in the matter.” 
He paused and continued, “ It might hurt the bank. 
Just tell them you’ll see that it’s taken care of.” 

The colonel put out his hand as he rose. When their 
hands met he was saying: “ Blood tells, Robert Hendricks, 
blood tells. Wasn’t your sainted father a Democrat, 
boy, a Democrat like me, sir, — a Union Democrat in 
point of fact ? ” The colonel squeezed the younger man’s 
hand as he cried: “ A Union Democrat, sir, who could shoot 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


197 


at his party, sir, but never could bring himself to vote 
against it — not once, sir — not once. And Robert Hen¬ 
dricks, when I see you acting as you’ve acted just now, sir, 
this very minute in point of fact, I may say, sir, that you’re 
almost honest enough to be a Democrat, sir—like your 
sainted father.” The colonel held the young man’s hand 
affectionately for a time and then dropped it, sighing, 
44 Ah, sir—if it wasn’t for your damned Yankee free schools 
and your damned Yankee surroundings, what a Democrat 
you would have made, Robert — what a grand Democrat! ” 
The colonel waved his silver tobacco box proudly and 
made for the door and left Hendricks sitting at his desk, 
drumming on the board with one hand, and resting his 
head in the other, looking longingly into the abyss from 
which he had escaped; for the lure of the danger still 
fluttered his soul. 

Strength had come to him in that hour to resist the 
temptation. But the temptation still was there. For he 
was a young man, giving up for an intangible thing called 
justice the dearest thing in his life. He had opened the 
door of his life’s despair and had walked in, as much like 
a man as he could, but he kept looking back with a heavy 
heart, hungering with his whole body and most of his soul 
for all that he had renounced. And so, staring at the 
light of other days, and across the shadow of what might 
have been, he let ten long minutes tick past toward the 
inevitable hour, and then he rose and put his hand to the 
plough for the long furrow. 

They are all off the stage now, as Bob Hendricks is 
standing in the front door of the bank that August night 
with his watch in his hand reckoning the minutes—some 
four thousand three hundred of them — until Molly Cul¬ 
pepper will pass from him forever, and as the stage is al¬ 
most deserted, we may peep under the rear curtain for a 
minute. Observe Sycamore Ridge in the eighties, with 
Hendricks its moving spirit, controlling its politics, domi¬ 
nating its business,—for John Barclay’s business has moved 
to the City and Bob Hendricks has become the material 
embodiment of the town. And the town there on the 


198 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


canvas is a busy town of twenty thousand people. Just 
back of that scene we find a convention spread on the can¬ 
vas, a political convention wherein Robert Hendricks is 
struggling for good government and clean politics. Ob¬ 
serve him a taciturn, forceful man, with his hands on the 
machinery of his party in the state, shaping its destinies, 
directing its politics, seeking no office, keeping himself in 
the background, desiring only to serve, and not to adver¬ 
tise his power. So more and more power comes to him, 
greater and wider opportunities to serve his state. His 
business grows and multiplies, and he becomes a strong 
man among men; always reserved, always cautious, a man 
whose self-poise makes people take him for a cynic, though 
his heart is full of hope and of the joy of life to the very 
last. Let us lift up one more rag — one more painted rag 
in the scenery of his life-—and see him a reformer of na¬ 
tional fame; see him with an unflinching hand pull the 
wires that control a great national policy of his party, and 
watch in that scene wherein he names a president — even 
against the power and the money and the organization of 
rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay. Hendricks’ 
thin hair is growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no 
longer fresh and white ; but his eyes have a twinkle in them, 
and the ardour of his soul glows in a glad countenance. 
And as he sits alone in his room long after midnight while 
the bands are roaring and the processions cheering and the 
great city is ablaze with excitement, Robert Hendricks, 
turning fifty, winds his watch — the same watch that he 
holds in his hand here while we pause to peek under the 
canvas behind the scenes — and wonders if Molly will 
be glad that his side won. He has not seen her for months, 
nor talked with her for years, and yet as he sits there wind¬ 
ing his watch after his great strategic victory in national 
politics, he hopes fondly that perhaps Molly will know 
that he played a clean hand and won a fair game. 

Now let us crawl out from under this rubbish of the 
coming years, back into Sycamore Ridge. And while the 
street is deserted, let us turn the film of events forward, 
letting them flit by unnoticed past the wedding of Molly 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


199 


Culpepper and Adrian Brownwell until we come to the 
August day when the railroad came to Sycamore Ridge. 

Jacob Dolan, sheriff in and for Garrison County for four 
years, beginning with 1873, remembered the summer of 
1875 to his dying day, as the year when he tore his blue 
soldier coat, and for twenty-five years, after the fight in 
which the coat was torn, Dolan never put it on for a 
funeral or a state occasion, that he did not smooth out the 
seam that Nellie Logan McHurdie made in mending the 
rent place, and recall the exigencies of the public service 
which made it necessary to tear one’s clothes to keep the 
peace. 

44 You may state to the court in your own way,” said 
the judge at the trial of the sheriff for assault, 44 just how 
the difficulty began.” 

44 Well, sir,” answered Dolan, 44 there was a bit of a cele¬ 
bration in town, on August 30, it being the day the rail¬ 
road came in, and in honour of the occasion I put on my 
regimentals, and along about — say eleven o’clock — as the 
crowd began to thicken up around the bank corner, and in 
front of the hardware store, I was walking along, kind of 
shoving the way clear for the ladies to pass, when some 
one behind me says, 4 General Hendricks was an old thief, 
and his son is no better,’ and I turned around and clapt 
my eye on this gentleman here. I’d never seen him before 
in my whole life, but I knew by the bold free gay way he 
had with his tongue that he was from Minneola and bent 
on trouble. 4 Keep still,’ says I, calm and dignified like, 
bent on preserving the peace, as was my duty. 4 I’ll not,’ 
says he. 4 You will,’says I. 4 ’Tis a free country,’says 
he, coming toward me with one shoulder wiggling. 4 But 
not for cowards who malign the dead,’ says I. ‘Well, 
they were thieves,’ says he, shaking his fist and getting 
more and more into contempt of court every minute, 
‘You’re a liar,’ says I, maintaining the dignity of my 
office. 4 And you’re a thief too,’ says he. 4 A what? ’ says 
I. 4 A thief,’ says he. 4 Whack,’ says I, with my stick 
across his head, upholding the dignity of the court. 

4 Biff,’ says he, with a brick that was handy, more and more 


200 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


contemptuous. ‘ You dirty, mangy cur,’ says I, grabbing 
him by the ears and pounding his head against the wall as 
I spoke, hoping to get some idea of the dignity of the court 
into his rebellious head. 4 Whoop,’ says he, and, as he 
tore my coat, 4 Yip yip,’ says I, and may it please the court 
it was shortly thereafter that the real trouble started, 
though I misremember just how at this time.” And as 
there were three 44 E ” Company men on the jury, they 
acquitted Dolan and advised the court to assess a fine on 
the prosecuting witness for contributory negligence in re¬ 
sisting an officer. 

But the coat — the blue coat with brass buttons, with 
the straps of a lieutenant on the shoulders, was mended 
and even in that same summer did active service many 
times. For that was a busy summer for Sycamore Ridge, 
and holidays came faster than the months. AVhen the 
supreme court decided the Minneola suit to enjoin the 
building of the court-house, in favour of Sycamore Ridge, 
there was another holiday, and men drew John Barclay 
around in the new hack with the top down, and there were 
fireworks in the evening. For it was John Barclay’s law- 
su’t. Lige Be mis, who was county attorney, did not try 
to claim credit for the work, and when the last acre of the 
great wheat crop of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was 
cut, and threshed, there was a big celebration and the 
elevator of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was formally 
turned over to the company, and John Barclay was the 
hero of another happy occasion. For the elevator, stand¬ 
ing on a switch by the railroad track, was his 44 proposition.” 
And every one in town knew that the railroad company 
had made a rate of wheat to Barclay and his associates, so 
low that Minneola could not compete, even if she hauled 
her wheat to another station on the road, so Minneola 
teams lined up at Barclay’s elevator. That autumn Min¬ 
neola, without a railroad, without a chance for the county- 
seat, and without a grain market, began to fag, and during 
the last of September, the Mason House came moving out 
ever the hill road, from Minneola to Sycamore Ridge, sur¬ 
rounded by a great crowd of enthusiastic men from tha 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


201 


Ridge. Every evening, of the two weeks in which the 
house was moving, people drove out from Sycamore Ridge 
to see it, and Lycurgus Mason, sitting on the back step 
smoking, — he could not get into the habit of using the 
front steps even in his day of triumph, — was a person of 
considerable importance. 

Money was plentiful, and the Exchange National Bank 
grew with the country. The procession of covered wag¬ 
ons, that had straggled and failed the year before, began 
to close ranks in the spring; and in place of “ Buck ” 
and “Ball” and “Star,” and “Bright” and “Tom” and 
“Jerry,” who used to groan under the yoke, horses were 
hitched to the wagons, and stock followed after them, and 
thus Garrison County was settled, and Sycamore Ridge 
grew from three to five thousand people in three years. 
In the spring of ’75 the Banner began to publish a daily 
edition, and Editor Brown well went up and down the 
railroad on his pass, attending conventions and making 
himself a familiar figure in the state. Times were so 
prosperous that the people lost interest in the crime of ’73, 
and* General Ward had to stay in his law-office, but he 
joined the teetotalers and helped to organize the Good 
Templars and the state temperance society. Colonel Cul¬ 
pepper in his prosperity took to fancy vests, cut extremely 
low, and the Culpepper women became the nucleus of 
organized polite society in the Ridge. 

The money that John Barclay made in that first wheat 
transaction was the foundation of his fortune. For that 
money gave him two important things needed in mak¬ 
ing money — confidence in himself, and prestige. He 
was twenty-five years old then, and he had demonstrated 
to his community thoroughly that he had courage, that 
he was crafty, and that he went to his end and got 
results, without stopping for overnice scruples of honour. 
Sycamore Ridge and Garrison County, excepting a few 
men like General Ward, who were known as cranks, re¬ 
garded John as the smartest man in the county — smarter 
even than Lige Bemis. And the whole community, in¬ 
cluding some of the injured farmers themselves, considered 


202 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Hendricks a sissy for his scruples, and thought Barclay a 
shrewd financier for claiming all that he could get. Bar¬ 
clay got hold of eight thousand acres of wheat land, in 
adjacent tracts, and went ahead with his business. In 
August he ploughed the ground for another crop. Also he 
persuaded his mother to let him build a new home on the 
site of the Barclay home by the Sycamore tree under the 
ridge, and when it was done that winter Mr. and Mrs. John 
Barclay moved out of their rooms at the Thayer House and 
lived with John’s mother. The house they built cost ten 
thousand dollars when it was finished, and it may still be 
seen as part of the great rambling structure that he built in 
the nineties. John put five hundred dollars’ worth of books 
into the new house — sets of books, which strangely enough 
he forced himself to wade through laboriously, and thus he 
cultivated a habit of reading that always remained with 
him. In those days the books with cracked backs in his 
library were Emerson, Browning, and Tennyson. And 
after a hard day’s work he would come home to his poets 
and his piano. He thought out the whole plan of the 
Barclay Economy Car Door Strip about midnight, sitting 
in his night clothes at the piano after reading “Abt Vog- 
ler,” and the central idea for the address on the “ Practi¬ 
cal Transcendentalist,” which he delivered at the opening 
of the state university the next year, came to him one 
winter night after he had tried to compose a clanging 
march as an air to fit Emerson’s “ The Sphinx.” After 
almost a quarter of a century that address became the 
first chapter of Barclay’s famous book, which created such 
ribaldry in the newspapers, entitled “ The Obligations of 
Wealth.” 

It was in 1879 that Barclay patented his Economy Door 
Strip, and put it in his grain cars. It saved loss of grain 
in shipping, and Barclay, being on terms of business inti¬ 
macy with the railroad men, sold the Economy Strip to 
the railroads to use on every car of grain or flour he 
shipped. And Lycurgus Mason, taken from the kitchen 
of the Mason House, hired a room over McHurdie’s har¬ 
ness shop, and made the strips there. His first day in 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


203 


his new shop is impressed upon his memory by an incident 
that is the seed of a considerable part of this story. 

He always remembers that day, because, when he got to 
the Thayer House, he found John there in the buggy 
waiting for him, and a crowd of men sitting around smok¬ 
ing cigars. In the seat by Barclay was a cigar-box, and 
Lycurgus cut in, before John could speak, with, “Well, 
which is it ? ” 

And John returned, “A girl — get in; Mother Mason 
needs you.” 

Lycurgus fumbled under the box lid for a cigar as he 
got into the buggy, and repeated: “ Mother needs me, eh? 
Well, now, ain’t that just like a woman, taking a man from 
his work in the middle of the day ? What are you going 
to name her? ” 

“How do you like Jeanette?” asked Barclay, as he 
turned the horse. “ You know we can’t have two Janes,” 
he explained. 

“Well,” asked the elder man, tentatively, “how does 
mother stand on Jeanette?” 

“Mother Mason,” answered Barclay, “is against it.” 

“All right,” replied Lycurgus, “I vote aye. What 
does she want?” he asked. 

“Susan B.,” returned Barclay. 

“Susan B. Anthony?” queried the new grandfather, 

“ Exactly,” replied the new father. 

The two rode down the street in silence ; as they turned 
into the Barclay driveway Lycurgus chuckled, “Well — 
well — Susan B. Wants to put breeches on that child 
before she gets her eyes open.” Then he turned on Bar¬ 
clay with a broad grin of fellowship, as he pinched the 
young man’s leg and laughed, “ Say — John — honest, 
ain’t that just like a woman?” 

And so Jeanette Thatcher Barclay came into this world, 
and what with her Grandmother Barclay uncovering her 
to look at the Thatcher nose, and her Grandmother Mason 
taking her to the attic so that she could go upstairs be¬ 
fore she went down, that she might never come down, in 
the world, and what with her Grandfather Mason rubbing 


204 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


her almost raw with his fuzzy beard before the women 
could scream at him, and what with her father trying to 
jostle her on his knee, and what with all the different 
things Mrs. Ward, the mother of six, would have done to 
her, and all the things Mrs. Culpepper, mother of three, 
would have done to her, and Mrs. Me Hurdle, mother of 
none, prevented the others from doing, Jeanette had rather 
an exciting birthday. And Jeanette Barclay as a young 
woman often looks at the scrap-book with its crinkly 
leaves and reads this item from the Daily Banner: “The 
angels visited our prosperous city again last Thursday, 
June 12, and left a little one named Jeanette at the home of 
our honoured townsman, John Barclay. Mother and child 
progressing nicely.” But under this item is a long poem 
clipped from a paper printed a week later, — Jeanette has 
counted the stanzas many times and knows there are sev¬ 
enteen, and each one ends with 44 when the angels brought 
Jeanette.” Her father used to read the verses to her to 
tease her when she was in her teens, and once when she 
was in her twenties, and Jeanette had the lonely poet out 
to dinner one Sunday, she sat with him on the sofa in the 
library, looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes fell 
upon the verses about the angels bringing Jeanette, and 
the girl noticed the old man mumming it over and smiling. 

“Tell me, Uncle Watts,” she asked, “why did you 
make such a long poem about such a short girl ? ” 

The poet ran his fingers through his rough gray beard, 
and went on droning off the lines, and grinning as he read. 
When he had finished, he took her pretty hand in his gnarly, 
bony one and patted the white than flesh tenderly as he 
peered back through the years. “ U-h-m, that was years 
and years ago, Jeanette — years and years ago, and Nellie 
had just bought me my rhyming dictionary. It was the 
first time I had a chance to use it.” The lyrical artist 
drummed with his fingers on the mahogany arm of the 
sofa. “ My goodness, child — what a long column there 
was of words rhyming with ’ette. ’ ” He laughed to him¬ 
self as he mused : “You know, my dear, I had to let 4 brevet * 
and 4 fret ’ and 4 roulette * go, because I couldn’t think of 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


205 


anything to say about them. You don’t know how that 
worries a poet.” He looked at the verses in the book be¬ 
fore him and then shook his head sadly: “I was young 
then—it seems strange to think I could write that. 
Youth, youth,' 5 he sighed as he patted the fresh young 
hand beside him, “it is not by chance you rhyme with 
truth.” 

His eyes glistened, and the girl put her cheek against 
his and squeezed the thin, trembling hand as she cried, 
“ Oh, Uncle Watts, Uncle Watts, you’re a dear — a regu¬ 
lar dear! ” 

“ In his latter days,” writes Colonel Culpepper, in the 
second edition of the Biography, “ those subterranean 
fires of life that flowed so fervently in his youth and man¬ 
hood smouldered, and he did not write often. But on oc¬ 
casion the flames would rise and burn for a moment with 
their old-time ardour. The poem ‘After Glow’ was 
penned one night just following a visit with a young 
woman, Jeanette, only daughter of Honourable and Mrs. 
John Barclay, whose birth is celebrated elsewhere in this 
volume under the title ‘ When the Angels brought 
Jeanette. 5 The day after the poem ‘After Glow’ was 
composed I was sitting in the harness shop with the poet 
when the conversation turned upon the compensations of 
age. I said : ‘ Sir, do you not think that one of our com¬ 
pensations is that found in the freedom and the rare in¬ 
timacy with which we are treated by the young women ? 
They no longer seem to fear us. Is it not sweet ? 5 I 
asked. Our hero turned from his bench with a smile and 
a deprecating gesture as he replied softly, ‘Ah, Colonel—• 
that’s just it; that’s just the trouble.’ And then he took 
from a box near by this poem, ‘ The After Glow,’ and read 
it to me. And I knew the meaning of the line — 

“ ‘ Oh, drowsy blood that tosses in its sleep/ 

“ And so we fell to talking of other days. And until the 
twilight came we sat together, dreaming of faded moons.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


Colonel Martin Culpepper was standing with one 
foot on the window ledge in the office of Philemon R. 
Ward one bright spring morning watching the procession 
of humanity file into the post-office and out into the street 
upon the regular business of life. Mrs. Watts McHurdie, 
a bride of five years and obviously proud of it, hurried by, 
and Mrs. John Barclay drove down the street in her 
phaeton; Oscar Fernald, with a pencil behind his ear, 
came out of his office licking an envelope and loped into 
the post-office and out like a dog looking for his bone; and 
then a lank figure sauntered down the street, stopping here 
and there to talk with a passerby, stepping into a stairway 
to light a cigar, and betimes leaning languidly against 
an awning post in the sun and overhauling farmers passing 
down Main Street in their wagons. 

“ He’s certainly a gallus-looking slink,” ejaculated the 
colonel. 

The general, writing at his desk, asked, “ Who ? ” 

“ Our old friend and comrade in arms, Lige Bemis.” 
At the blank look on the general’s face the colonel shook 
his head wearily. “ Don’t know what a gallus-looking 
slink is, do you ? General, the more 1 live with you damn 
Yankees and fight for your flag and die for your country, 
sir, the more astonished I am at your limited and provincial 
knowledge ef the United States language. Here you are, 
a Harvard graduate, with the Harvard pickle dripping off 
your ears, confessing such ignorance of your mother-tongue. 
General, a gallus-looking slink is four lioss thieves, three 
revenue officers, a tin pedler, and a sheep-killing dog, all 
rolled into one man. And as I before remarked, our be¬ 
loved comrade, Lige Bernis, is certainly a gallus-looking 
4ink.” 


206 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


207 


il Far be it from me,” continued the colonel, 44 residing 
as I may say in a rather open and somewhat exposed domi¬ 
cile— a glass house in fact—to throw stones at Elijah 
Westlake Bemis, —far be it.” The colonel patted himself 
heroically on the stomach and laughed. 44 Doubtless, while 
I haven’t been a professional horse thief, nor a cattle rustler, 
still, probably, if the truth was known, I’ve done a number 
of things equally distasteful — I was going to say obnox¬ 
ious— in the sight of Mr. Bemis, so we’ll let that pass.” 
The colonel stretched his suspenders out and let them flap 
against the plaits of his immaculate shirt. 44 But I will 
say, General, that as I see it, it will be a heap handier for 
me to explain to St. Peter at the gate the things I’ve done 
than if he’d ask me about Lige’s record.” 

The general scratched along, without answering, and 
the colonel looked meditatively into the street; then he 
began to smile, and the smile glowed into a beam that be¬ 
spread his countenance and sank into a mood that set his 
vest to shaking 44 like a bowl full of jelly.” 44 1 was just 
thinking,” he said to nobody in particular, 44 that if Lige 
was jumped out of his grave right quick by Gabriel and 
hauled up before St. Peter and asked to justify my record, 
he’d have some trouble too —- considerable difficulty, I may 
say. I reckon it’s all a matter of having to live with your 
sins till you get a good excuse thought up.” 

The general pushed aside his work impatiently and tilted 
back in his chair. 44 Come, Martin Culpepper, come, come ! 
That won’t do. You know better than that. What’s the 
use of your pretending to be as bad as Lige Bemis? You 
know better and I know better and the whole town knows 
better. He’s little, and he’s mean, and snooping, and 
crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Why, he was in here yester¬ 
day — actually in here to see me. Yes, sir — what do you 
think of that ? Wants to be state senator.” 

44 So I hear,” smiled the colonel. 

44 Well,” continued the general, 44 he came in here yes¬ 
terday as pious as a deacon, and he said that his friends 
were insisting on his running because his enemies were 
bringing up that 4 old trouble’ on him. He calls his horse 


208 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


stealing and cattle rustling ‘that old trouble.’ Honestly^ 
Martin, you’d think he was being persecuted. It was all 
I could do to keep from sympathizing with him. He said 
he couldn’t afford to retreat under fire, and then he told 
me how he had been trying to be a better man, and win 
the respect of the people — and I couldn’t stand it any 
longer, and I rose up and shook my fist in his face and 
said: 4 Lige Bemis, you disreputable, horse-stealing cow 
thief, what right have you to ask my help? What right 
have you got to run for state senator, anyway ? ’ And, 
Martin, the brazen whelp reared back and looked me 
squarely in the eye and answered without blinking, 4 Be¬ 
cause, Phil Ward, I want the job.’ What do you think of 
that for brass ? ” 

The colonel slapped his campaign hat on his leg and 
laughed. There was always, even to the last, something 
feminine in Martin Culpepper’s face when he laughed — a 
kind of alternating personality of the other sex seemed to 
tiptoe up to his consciousness and peek out of his kind eyes. 
As he laughed with Ward the colonel spoke: 44 Criminy, 
but that’s like him. He’s over there talking to Gabe Car- 
nine on the corner now. I know what he’s saying. He 
has only one speech, and he gets it off to all of us. He’s 
got his cigar chawed down to a rag, stuck in one corner of 
his mouth, and he’s saying, 4 Gabe — this is the fight of my 
life. This is the last time I’m going to ask my friends for 
help.’ General, I’ve heard that now, off and on, first and last, 
from old Lige at every city, state, county, and lodge elec¬ 
tion since the war closed, and I can see how Gabe is twist¬ 
ing and wiggling trying to get away from it. He’s heard 
it too. Now Lige is saying: 4 Gabe, I ain’t going to lie 
to you ; you know me, and you know I’ve made mistakes 
— but they were errors of judgment, and I want to get 
a chance to live ’em down. I want to show the young 
men of this state that Lige Bemis of the Red Legs is a 
man — even if he was wild as a young fellow; it’ll prove 
that a man can rise.’ Poor old Gabe — Lige has got him 
by the coat front, now. That’s the third degree. When 
he gets him by the neck and begins to whisper, he’s giving 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


209 


him the work in the uniform rank. He’s saying: 4 Gabe, 
I’ve got to have you with me. I can’t win without you, 
and I would rather lose than win with you against me. 
You stand for all that’s upright in this county, and if 
you’ll come to my aid, I can win.’ Here, General — look 
— Lige’s got him by the neck and the hand. Now for 
the password right from the grand lodge, * Gabe, you’d 
make a fine state treasurer — I can land it for you. 
Make me state senator, and with my state acquaintance, 
added to the prestige of this office, I can make a deal that 
will land you.’ Oh, I know his whole speech,” laughed 
the colonel. 44 Bob Hendricks is to be secretary of state, 
John Barclay is to be governor, Oscar Fernald is to be state 
auditor, and the boys say that Lycurgus Mason has the re¬ 
fusal of warden of the Penitentiary.” The colonel chuckled 
as he added : 44 So far as the boys have been able to learn, 
Lige still has United States senator, president, and five 
places in the cabinet to go on, but Minneola township 
returns ain’t all in yet, and they may change the result. 
By the way, General, what did you get ? ” 

The general flushed and replied, 44 Well, to be perfectly 
honest with you, Mart — he did promise me to vote for 
the dram-shop law.” 

And in the convention that summer Lige Bemis strode 
with his ragged cigar sticking from the corner of his 
mouth, with his black eyes blazing, and his shock of black 
hair on end, begging, bulldozing, and buying delegates 
to vote for him. He had the river wards behind him 
to a man, and he had the upland townships where the 
farmers needed a second name on their notes at the bank; 
and in the gentleman’s ward—the silk-stocking ward — 
he had Gabriel Carnine, chairman of the first ward dele¬ 
gation, casting the solid vote of that ward for Bemis 
ballot after ballot. And when Bemis got Minneola town¬ 
ship for fifty dollars, — and everybody in the convention 
knew it,—he was declared the nominee of the party with a 
whoop. 

But behind Bemis was the sinister figure of young John 
Barclay working for his Elevator Company. He needed 


210 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Bemis in politics, and Bemis needed Barclay in business. 
And there the alliance between Barclay and Bemis was 
cemented, to last for a quarter of a century. Barclay and 
Bemis went into the campaign together and asked the 
people to rally to the support of the party that had put 
down the rebellion, that had freed four million slaves, and 
had put the names of Lincoln and of Grant and Garfield 
as stars in the world’s firmament of heroes. And the peo¬ 
ple of Garrison County responded, and State Senator 
Elijah Westlake Bemis did for Barclay in the legislature 
the things that Barclay would have preferred not to do for 
himself, and the Golden Belt Elevator Company throve and 
waxed fat. And Lige Bemis, its attorney, put himself in 
the way of becoming a “ general counsel,” with his name 
on an opaque glass door. For as Barclay rose in the 
world, he found the need of Bemis more and more pressing 
every year. In politics the favours a man does for others 
are his capital, and Barclay’s deposit grew large. He was 
forever helping some one. His standing with the powers 
in the state was good. He was a local railroad attorney, 
and knew the men who had passes to give, and who were 
responsible for the direction which legislation took during 
the session. Barclay saw that they put Bemis on the ju¬ 
diciary committee, and by manipulating the judiciary com¬ 
mittee he controlled a dozen votes through Bemis. He 
changed a railroad assessment law, secured the passage 
of a law permitting his Elevator Company to cheat the 
farmers by falsely grading their wheat, and prevented the 
passage of half a dozen laws restricting the powers of rail¬ 
roads. So at the close of the legislative session his name 
appeared under a wood-cut picture in the Commonwealth 
newspaper, and in the article thereunto appended Barclay 
was referred to as one of the “ money kings of our young 
state.” That summer he turned his wheat into his eleva¬ 
tor early and at a low price, and borrowed money on it, 
and bought five new elevators and strained his credit to 
the limit, and before the fall closed he had ten more, and 
controlled the wheat in twenty counties. Strangers riding 
through the state on the Corn Belt Railroad saw the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


211 


words, “ The Golden Belt Elevator Company ” on eleva¬ 
tors all along the line. But few people knew then that 
the “Company” had become a partnership between John 
Barclay of Sycamore Ridge and less than half a dozen 
railroad men, with Barclay owning seventy-five per cent 
of the partnership and with State Senator Bemis the attor¬ 
ney for the company. 

That year the railroad officials who were making money 
out of the Golden Belt Elevator Company were obliging, 
and Barclay made a contract with them to ship all grain 
from the Golden Belt Company’s elevators in cars equipped 
with the Barclay Economy Rubber Strip, and he sold 
these strips to the railroads for four dollars apiece and put 
them on at the elevators. He shipped ten thousand cars 
that year, and Lycurgus Mason hired two men to help him 
in the strip factory. And John Barclay, in addition to the 
regular rebate, made forty thousand dollars that he did 
not have to divide. The next year he leased three large 
mills and took over a score of elevators and paid Lycurgus 
twenty dollars a week, and Lycurgus deposited money in 
the bank in his own name for the first time in his life. 

As the century clanged noisily into its busy eighties, 
Adrian P. Brown well creaked stiffly into his forties. 
And while all the world about him was growing rich, — or 
thought it was, which is the same thing, — Brownwell 
seemed to be struggling to keep barely even with the 
score of life. The Banner of course ran as a daily, but it 
was a miserable, half-starved little sheet, badly printed, 
and edited, as the printers used to say, with a pitchfork. 
It looked shiftless and dirty-faced long before Brownwell 
began to look seed}^. Editor Brownwell was forever 
going on excursions—editorial excursions, land-buyers’ 
excursions, corn trains, fruit trains, trade trains, political 
junkets, tours of inspection of new towns and new fields, 
and for consideration he was forever writing grandiloquent 
accounts of his adventures home to the Banner. But from 
the very first he ostentatiously left Molly, his wife, at 
home. “ The place for a woman,” said Brownwell to the 
assembled company on the Barclay veranda one evening, 


212 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


when Jane had asked him why he did not take Molly to 
the opening of the new hotel at Garden City, 44 the place 
for woman is in the sacred precincts of home, 4 far from 
the madding crowd’s ignoble throng.’ The madame and 
I,” with a flourish of his cane, 44 came to that agreement 
early, eh, my dear, eh ? ” he asked, poking her master¬ 
fully with his cane. And Molly Brownwell, wistful-eyed 
and fading, smiled and assented, and the incident passed 
as dozens of other incidents passed in the Ridge, which 
made the women wish they had Adrian Brownwell, to 
handle for just one day. But the angels in that department 
of heaven where the marriages are made are exceedingly 
careful not to give to that particular kind of women the 
Adrian Brownwell kind of men, so the experiment which 
every one on earth for thousands of years has longed to wit¬ 
ness, still remains a theory, and Adrian Brownwell traipsed 
up and down the earth, in his lavender gloves, his long coat 
and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with his twirling 
cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his buttonhole. 
His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to 
leave the sacred precincts of the home many and many 
a Saturday afternoon, to go over the books at the Banner 
office, make out bills, take them out, and collect the money 
due upon them and pay off the printers who got out the 
paper. But Adrian Brownwell ostentatiously ignored 
such services and kept up the fiction about the sacred 
precincts, and often wrote scorching editorials about the 
44 encroachment of women ” and grew indignant editorially 
at the growth of sentiment for woman’s suffrage. On one 
occasion he left on the copy-hook a fervid appeal for 
women to repulse the commercialism which 44 was sullying 
the fair rose of womanhood,” and taking* 44 from woman 
the rare perfume of her chiefest charm,” and then he 
went away on a ten days’ journey, and the foreman of the 
Banner had to ask Mrs. Brownwell to collect enough 
money from the sheriff and a delinquent livery-stable 
keeper to pay the freight charges on the paper stock 
needed for that week’s issue of the paper. 

The town came to know these things, and so when 


a CERTAIN RICH MAN 


213 


Brownwell, who, since his marriage, had taken up his abode 
at the Culpeppers’, hinted at his “ extravagant family,” the 
town refused to take him seriously. And the strutting, 
pompous little man, who referred grandly to “my wife,” 
and then to “ the madame,” and finally to “ my landlady,” 
in a rather elaborate attempt at jocularity, laughed alone 
at his merriment along this line, and never knew that no 
one cared for his humour. 

So in his early forties Editor Brownwell dried up and 
grew yellow and began to dye his mustaches and his eye¬ 
brows, and to devote much time to considering his own 
importance. “ Throw it out,” said Brownwell to the 
foreman, “ not a line of it shall go ! ” He had just come 
home from a trip and had happened to glance over the 
proof of the article describing the laying of the corner¬ 
stone of Ward University. 

“But that’s the only thing that happened in town this 
week, and Mrs. Brownwell wrote it herself.” 

“ Cut it out, I say,” insisted Brownwell, and then 
threw back his shoulders and marched to his desk, snap¬ 
ping his eyes, and demonstrating to the printers that he 
was a man of consequence. “ I’ll teach ’em,” he roared. 
“I’ll teach ’em to make up their committees and leave 
me out.” 

He raged about the office, and finally wrote the name 
of Philemon R. Ward in large letters on the office black¬ 
list hanging above his desk. This list contained the 
names which under no circumstances were to appear in 
the paper. But it was a flexible list. The next day 
John Barclay, who desired to have his speech on the lay¬ 
ing of the corner-stone printed in full, gave Brownwell 
twenty dollars, and a most glowing account of the event 
in question appeared in the Banner , and eloquence^ stag¬ 
gered under the burden of praise which Brownwell’s lan¬ 
guage loaded upon the shoulders of General Ward. 

It is now nearly a generation since that corner-stone 
was laid. Boys and girls who then were children have 
children in the university, and its alumni include a briga¬ 
dier in the army, a poet, a preacher of national renown, 


214 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


two college presidents, an authority upon the dynamics 
of living matter, and two men who died in the Ameri¬ 
can mission at Foo Chow during the uprising in 1900. 
When General Ward was running for President of the 
United States on one of the various seceding branches of 
the prohibition party, while Jeanette Barclay was a little 
girl, he found the money for it; two maiden great-aunts 
on his mother’s side of the family had half a million dol¬ 
lars to leave to something, and the general got it. They 
willed it to him to hold in trust during his lifetime, but 
the day after the check came for it, he had transferred 
the money to a university fund, and had borrowed fifty 
dollars of Bob Hendricks to clean up his grocery bills 
and tide him over until his pension came. But he was a 
practical old fox. He announced that he would give the 
money to a college only if the town would give a similar 
sum, and what with John Barclay’s hundred-thousand-dol- 
lar donation, and Bob Hendricks’ ten thousand, and what 
with the subscription paper carried around by Colonel 
Culpepper, who proudly headed it with five thousand dol¬ 
lars, and after the figure wrote in red ink “ in real estate,” 
much to the town’s merriment, and what with public meet¬ 
ings and exhortations in the churches, and what with vot¬ 
ing one hundred thousand dollars in bonds by Garrison 
County for the privilege of sending students to the college 
without tuition, the amount was raised; and as the proces¬ 
sion wheeled out of Main Street to attend the ceremonies 
incident to laying the corner-stone that beautiful October 
day, it is doubtful which was the prouder man — Martin 
Culpepper, the master of ceremonies, in his plumed hat, 
flashing sword, and red sash, or General Philemon 
Ward, who for the first time in a dozen years heard the 
crowd cheer his name when the governor in his speech 
pointed at the general’s picture — his campaign picture 
that had been hooted witli derision and spattered with 
filth on so many different occasions in the town. The 
governor’s remarks were of course perfunctory; he de¬ 
voted five or ten minutes to the praise of General Ward, 
of Sycamore Ridge, of John Barclay, and of education h? 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


215 


general, and then made his regular speech that he used 
for college commencements, for addresses of welcome to 
church conferences, synods, and assemblies, and for con¬ 
claves of the grand lodge. General Ward spoke poorly, 
which was to his credit, considering the occasion, and 
Watts McHurdie’s poem got entangled with Juno and 
Hermes and Minerva and a number of scandalous heathen 
gods, — who were no friends of Watts, — and the 
crowd tired before he finished the second canto. But 
many discriminating persons think that John Barclay’s 
address, “The Time of True Romance,” was the best 
thing he ever wrote. It may be found in his book as 
Chapter XI. “The Goths,” he said, “came out of the 
woods, pulled the beards of the senators, destroyed the 
Roman state, murdered and pillaged the Roman people, 
and left the world the Gothic arch; the Vikings came 
&yer the sea, roaring their sagas of rapine and slaughter ; 
the conquerors came to Europe with spear and sword and 
torch and left the outlines of the map, the boundaries of 
states. Luther married his nun, and set Christendom to 
fighting over it for a hundred years, but he left a free 
conscience. Cromwell thrust his pikes into the noble 
heads of England, snapped his fingers at law, and left 
civil liberty. Organized murder reached its sublimity 
in the war that Lincoln waged, and in that murdering 
and pillage true romance came to mankind in its flower. 
Murder for the moment in these piping times has become 
impolite. But true romance is here. Our heroes rob 
and plunder, and build cities, and swing gayly around 
the curves of the railroads they have stolen, and swagger 
through the cities they have levied upon the people to 
build. Do we care to-day whether Charlemagne murdered 
his enemies with a sword or an axe ; do we ask if King 
Arthur used painless assassination or burned his foes at 
the stake ? Who cares to know that Csesar was a rake, 
and that William the Conqueror was a robber ? They 
did their work and did it well, and are snugly sitting on 
their monuments where no moralist can reach them. So 
those searching for true romance to-day, who regard the 


216 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


decalogue as mere persiflage, and the moral code as a 
thing of archaic interest, will get their day’s work done 
and strut into posterity in bronze and marble. They will 
cheat and rob and oppress and grind the faces off the 
poor, and do their work and follow their visions, and live 
the romance in their hearts. To-morrow we will take their 
work, disinfect it, and dedicate it to God's uses.” 

There was more of it—four thousand words more, to be 
exact, and when General Ward went home that night he 
prayed his Unitarian God to forgive John Barclay for his 
blasphemy. And for years the general shuddered when 
his memory brought back the picture of the little man, 
with his hard tanned face, his glaring green eyes, his 
brazen voice trumpeting the doctrine of materialism to the 
people. 

“John,” said the general, the next day, as he sat in the 
mill, going over the plans of the college buildings with 
Barclay, who was chairman of the board of directors, 
“John, why are you so crass, so gross a materialist? You 
have enough money — why don’t you stop getting it and 
do something with it worth while? ” 

“ Because, General, I’m not making money — that’s only 
an incident of my day’s work. I’m organizing the grain 
industry of this country as it is organized in no other 
country on this planet.” Barclay rose as he spoke and 
began limping the length of the room. It was his habit 
to walk when he talked, and he knew the general had 
come to catechize him. 

“ Yes, but then, John — what then ? ” 

“What then?” repeated Barclay, with his hands in his 
pockets and his eyes on the floor. “Coffee, maybe — 
perhaps sugar, or tobacco. Or why not the whole food 
supply of the people — let me have meat and sugar where 
I will have flour and grain, and in ten years no man in 
America can open his grocery store in the morning until 
he has asked John Barclay for the key.” He snapped his 
eyes good-naturedly at the general, challenging the man’s 
approval. 

The general smiled and replied: “No, John, you’ll get 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


217 


the social bug and go around in knee-breeches, riding a 
horse after a scared fox, or keeping a lot of hussies on a 
yacht. They all get that way sooner or later.” 

Barclay leaned over Ward, stuck out his hard jaw and 
growled: “Well, I won’t. I’m going to be a tourist- 
sleeper millionnaire. I stick to Sycamore Ridge ; Jeanette 
goes to the public schools; Jane buys her clothes at Bob 
Hendricks’ or Dorman’s, or at the most of Marshall Field 
in Chicago; I go fishing down at Minneola when I want 
rest.” Ward started to protest, but Barclay headed him 
off. “ I made a million last year. What did I do with 
it? See any yachts on the Sycamore? Observe any 
understudies for Jane around the place ? Have you heard 
of any villas for the Barclays in Newport? No-—no,you 
haven’t, but you may like to know that I have control of 
a railroad that handles more wheat than any other hundred 
miles in the world, and it is the key to the lake situa¬ 
tion. And I’ve put the price of my Economy Door 
Strip up to ten dollars, and they don’t dare refuse it. 
What’s more, I’m going to hire a high-priced New York 
sculptor to make a monument for old Henry Schnitzler, 
who fell at Wilson’s Creek, and put it in the cemetery. 
But I am giving none of my hard-earned cash to cooks 
and florists and chorus ladies. So if I want to steal a mill 
or so every season, and gut a railroad, I’m going to do it, 
but no one can rise up and say I am squandering my sub¬ 
stance on riotous living.” 

Barclay shook his head as he spoke and gesticulated with 
his hands, and the general, seeing that he could not get 
the younger man to talk of serious tilings, brought out the 
plans for the college buildings, and the men fell to the work 
in hand with a will. 

Barclay’s spirit was the spirit of his times — growing 
out of a condition which, as Barclay said in his speech, was 
like Emersonian optimism set to Wagnerian music. In 
Sycamore Ridge factories rose in the bottoms near the 
creek, and shop hands appeared on the streets at night; 
new people invaded Lincoln Avenue, and the Culpeppers, 
*--oi maintain their social supremacy, had to hire a coloured 


218 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


man to open the door for an afternoon party, and for an 
evening reception it took two, one for the door and one to 
stand at the top of the stairs. 

Those were the palmy days of the colonel’s life. 
Money came easily, and went easily. The Culpepper 
Mortgage Company employed fifty men, who handled 
money all over the West, and one of the coloured men who 
opened the door at the annual social affair at the Culpepper 
home also took care of the horses, and drove the colonel 
down to his office in the Barclay block every morning, and 
drove him home in the evening. 

“Well,” said Watts McHurdie to Gabriel Carnine as 
the two walked down the hill into the business section of 
the town, a few days after the corner-stone of Ward Col¬ 
lege was laid, “ old Phil has got his college started and 
Mart’s got his church a-going.” 

“ You mean the East End Mission ? Yes, and I don’t 
know which of ’em is happier over his work,” replied 
Carnine. 

“ Well, Mart certainly is proud; lie’s been too busy 
to loaf in the shop for six months,” said McHurdie. 

Carnine smiled, and stroked his chestnut beard reflec¬ 
tively before he added: “ Probably that’s why he hasn’t 
been in to renew his last two notes. But I guess he does 
a lot of good to the poor people over there along the river. 
Though I shouldn’t wonder if he was encouraging them to 
be paupers.” Carnine paused a moment and then added, 
“ Good old Mart —he’s got a heart just like a woman’s.” 

They were passing the court-house square, and Bailiff 
Jacob Dolan, with a fist full of legal papers, caught step 
with Carnine and McHurdie. “ We were talking about 
Mart Culpepper and his Mission Church,” said Carnine. 
“Don’t you suppose, Jake, that Mart, by circulating down 
there with his basket so much, encourages the people to be 
shiftless ? We were just wondering.” 

“ Oh, you were, were you ? ” snapped Dolan. “ There 
you go, Gabe Carnine; since you’ve moved to town and 
got to be president of a bank, you're mighty damn scared 
about making paupers. When Christ told the young 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


219 


man to sell his goods and give them to the poor, He 
didn’t tell him to be careful about making them paupers. 
And Mr. Gabriel Carnine, Esquire, having the aroma of 
one large morning’s drink on my breath emboldens me to 
say, that if you rich men will do your part in giving, the 
Lord will manage to keep His side of the traces from 
scraping on the wheel. And if I had one more good nip, 
I’d say, which Heaven forbid, that you fellows are ask¬ 
ing more of the Lord by expecting Him to save your 
shrivelled selfish little souls from hell-fire because of your 
squeeze-penny charities, than you would be asking by ex¬ 
pecting Him to keep the poor from becoming paupers by 
the dribs you give them. And if Mart Culpepper can 
give his time and his money every day helping them poor 
devils down by the track, niggers and whites, good and bad, 
male and female, I guess the Lord will put in lick for lick 
with Mart and see that his helping doesn’t hurt them.” 
Dolan shook his head at the banker, and then smiled at 
him good-naturedly as he finished, “ Put that in your 
knapsack, you son of a gun, and chew on it till I see you 
again.” Whereupon he turned a corner and went his 
way. 

Carnine laughed rather unnaturally and said to Mc- 
Hurdie, “That’s why he’s never got on like the other 
boys. Whiskey’s a bad partner.” 

McHurdie agreed, and went chuckling to his work, 
when Carnine turned into the bank. Later in the fore¬ 
noon Bailiff Dolan came in grinning, and took a seat by 
the stove in McHurdie’s shop and said as he reached into 
the waste-basket for a scrap of harness leather, and began 
whittling it, “ What did Gabe say when I left you this 
morning ? ” and without waiting for a reply, went on, 
“ I’ve thought for some time Gabe needed a little some¬ 
thing for what ails him, and I gave it to him, out of the 
goodness of my heart.” 

McHurdie looked at Dolan over his glasses and replied, 
w Speech is silver, but silence is golden.” 

“ The same,” answered Dolan, “ the same it is, and by 
the same authority apples of gold in pictures of silver is a 


220 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


word fitly spoken to a man like Gabe Gamine.’* Ho 
whittled for a few minutes while the harness maker 
worked, and then sticking 1 his pocket-knife into the chair 
between his legs, said: 44 But what I came in to tell you 
was about Lige Bemis; did you know he’s in town ? 
Well, he is. Johnnie Barclay wired him to leave the 
dump up in the City and come down here, and what for, do 
you think ? ’Tis this. The council was going to change 
the name of Ellen Avenue out by the college to Garfield, 
and because it was named for that little girl of Mart’s 
that died right after the war, don’t you think Johnnie’s 
out raising hell about it, and brought Lige down here to 
beat the game. He’ll be spending a lot of money if he 
has to. Now you wouldn’t think he’d do that for old 
Mart, would you? He’s too many for me — that Johnny 
boy is. I can’t make him out.” The Irishman played 
with his knife, sticking it in the chair and pulling it out 
for a while, and then continued: “ Oh, yes, what I was 
going to tell you was the little spat me and Lige had over 
Johnnie. Lige was in my room in the court-house wait¬ 
ing to see a man in the court, and was bragging to me 
about how smart John was, and says Lige, ‘ lie’s found 
some earth over in Missouri — j^ellow cla} r ,’ he says, 
‘that’s just as good as oatmeal, and he ships it all over 
the country to his oatmeal mills and mixes it with the 
real stuff and sells it.’ I says: ‘ He does, does he ? Sells 
mud mixed with oatmeal?’ and Lige says, ‘Yes, sir, he’s 
got a whole mountain of it, and he’s getting ten dollars a 
ton net for it, which is better than a gold mine.’ 4 And 
you call that smart?’ says I. 4 Yes,’ says he, 4 yes, sir, 
that’s commercial instinct; it’s perfectly clean mud, and 
our chemist says it won’t harm any one,’ says he. 4 And 
him president of the Golden Belt Elevator *Co. ? * says I. 
4 He is,’ says Lige. 4 And don’t need the money at all ?’ 
says I. ‘Not a penny of it,’ says he. 4 Weli,’ says I, 
‘Lige Bemis,’ says I, 4 when Johnnie gets to hell, — and 
he'll get there as sure as it doesn’t freeze over,’ says I, 
‘may the devil put him under that mountain of mud and 
keep his railroad running night and day dumping more 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


221 


mud on while he eats his way out as a penance,* says I. 
And you or to heard ’em laugh.” Dolan went on cutting 
curly-cues from the leather, and McHurdie kept on sew¬ 
ing at his bench. “ It is a queer world — a queer world; 
and that Johnnie Barclay is a queer duck. Bringing 
Lige Bemis clear down here to help old Mart out of a 
little trouble there ain’t a dollar in; and then turning 
around and feeding the American people a mountain of 
mud. Giving the town a park with his mother’s name 
on it, and selling little tin strips for ten dollars apiece to 
pay for it. He’s a queer duck. I’ll bet it will keep the 
recording angel busy keeping books on Johnnie Barclay.” 

“Oh, well, Jake,” replied McHurdie, after a silence, 
“maybe the angels will just drop a tear and wipe much of 
the evil off.” 

“Maybe so, Watts McHurdie, maybe so,” returned 
Dolan, “ but there won’t be a dry eye in the house, as the 
papers say, if they keep up with him.” And after de¬ 
livering himself of this, Dolan rose and yawned, and went 
out of the shop singing an old tune which recited the fact 
that he had “a job to do down in the boulevard.” 

Looking over the years that have passed since John Bar¬ 
clay and Sycamore Ridge were coming out of raw adoles¬ 
cence into maturity, one sees that there was a miracle of 
change in them both, but where it was and just how it 
came, one may not say. The town had no special advan¬ 
tages. It might have been one of a thousand dreary brown 
unpainted villages that dot the wind-swept plain to-day, 
instead of the bright, prosperous, elm-shaded town that it 
is. John Barclay in those days of his early thirties might 
have become a penny-pinching dull-witted “prominent 
citizen ” of the Ridge, with no wider sphere of influence 
than the Sycamore Valley, or at most the Corn Belt Rail¬ 
road. But he and the town grew, and whether it was des¬ 
tiny that guided them, or whether they made their own 
destiny, one cannot say. The town seemed to be strug¬ 
gling and fighting its way to supremacy in the Sycamore 
Valley ; and the colonel and the general and Watts MeHur- 
die, sitting in the harness shop a score of years after those 


222 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


days of the seventies, used to try to remember some epi¬ 
sode or event that would tell them how John fought his 
way up. But they could not do so. It was a fight in his 
soul. Every time his hand reached out to steal a mill or 
crush an opponent with the weapon of his secret railroad 
rebates, something caught his hand and held it for a mo¬ 
ment, and he had to fight his way free. At first he had 
to learn to hate the man he was about to ruin, and to pre¬ 
tend that he thought the man was about to ruin him. 
Then he could justify himself in his greedy game. But 
at last he worked almost merrily. He came to enjoy the 
combat for its own sake. And sometimes he would play 
with a victim cat-wise, and after a victory in which the 
mouse fought well, John would lick his chops with some 
satisfaction at his business prowess. Mill after mill along 
the valley and through the West came under his control. 
And his skin grew leathery, and the brass lustre in his 
eyes grew hard and metallic. When he knew that he was 
the richest man in Garrison County, he saw that there 
were richer men in the state, and in after years when he 
was the richest man in the state, and in the Missouri Val¬ 
ley, the rich men in other states moved him by their 
wealth to work harder. But before he was thirty, his 
laugh had become a cackle, and Colonel Martin Culpep¬ 
per, who would saunter along when Barclay would limp by 
on Main Street, would call out after him, 44 Slow down, John¬ 
nie, slow down, boy, or you’ll bust a biler.” And then 
the colonel would pause and gaze benignly after the limp¬ 
ing figure bobbing along in the next block, and if there 
was a bystander to address, the colonel would say, 44 For 
a flat-wheel he does certainly make good time.” And 
then if the bystander looked worth the while, the colonel, 
in seven cases out of ten, would pull out a subscription 
paper for some new church building, or for some charitable 
purpose, and proceed to solicit the needed funds. 






































w 











Being No Chapter at All, but an Interlude for 

the Orchestra 

And so the years slipped by — monotonous years they 
seem now, so far as this story goes. Because little hap¬ 
pened worth the telling; for growth is so still and so dull 
and so undramatic that it escapes interest and climax; 
yet it is all there is in life. For the roots of events in 
the ground of the past are like the crowded moments of 
our passing lives that are recorded only in our under-con¬ 
sciousnesses, to rise in other years in character formed, in 
traits established, in events fructified. And in the years 
when the evil days came not, John Barclay’s tragedy was 
stirring in the soil of his soul. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the man¬ 
agement, let us thank you for your kind attention, during 
the tedious £ct which has closed. We have done our 
best to please you with the puppets and have cracked 
their heads tog^ ther in fine fashion, and they have danced 
and cried and crackled, while we pulled the strings as our 
mummers mumblecu But now they must have new clothes 
on. Time, the great costumer, must change their make-up. 
So we will fold down the curtain. John Barclay, a 
Gentleman, must be painted yellow with gold. Philemon 
Ward, a Patriot, must be sprinkled with gray. Martin 
Culpepper’s Large White Plumes must be towsled. Watts 
McHurdie, a Poet, must be bent a little at the hips and 
shoulders. Adrian Brownwell, a Gallant, must creak as 
he struts. Neal Dow Ward, an Infant, must put on long 
trousers. E. W. Bemis, a Lawyer, must be dignified; 
Jacob Dolan, an Irishman and a Soldier, must grow un¬ 
kempt and frowsy. Robert Hendricks, Fellow Fine, 
must have his blond hair rubbed off at the temples, and 
q 225 


226 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


his face marked with maturity. Lycurgus Mason, a 
Woman Tamer, must get used to wearing white shirts. 
Gabriel Carnine, a Money Changer, must feel his impor¬ 
tance; and Oscar Fernald, a Tavern Keeper, must be 
hobbled by the years. All but the shades must be refur¬ 
bished. General Hendricks and Elmer, his son, must fade 
farther into the mists of the past, while Henry Schnitzler 
settles comfortably down in storied urn and animated 
bust. 

There they hang together on the line, these basswood 
folk, and beside them wave their womankind. These 
also must be repaired and refitted throughout, as Oscar 
Fernald’s letter-heads used to say of the Thayer House. 
Jane Barclay, Wife of John, must have the “star light, 
star bright” wiped out of her eyes. Mary Barclay, 
Mother of the Same, must have her limbs trimmed gaunt, 
and her face chiselled strong and indomitable. Jeanette 
Barclay, a Toddler, must grow into dresses. Molly Cul¬ 
pepper, a Dear, must have her heart taken out, and her 
face show the shock of the operation. Nellie Logan, a 
poet’s Wife, must join all the lodges in the Ridge to help 
her husband in politics. Trixie Lee, little Beatrix Lee, 
daughter of J. Lord and Lady Lee, must have her child¬ 
ish face scarred and her eyes glazed. Mrs. Hally Bemis, 
a Prodigal, must be swathed in silk. Elizabeth Cady 
Stanton Ward and all her sisters must be put. in the 
simple garb of school-teachers. Miss Hendricks, a Mouse, 
must hide in the dusky places; and Ellen Culpepper, a 
Memory, must come to life. 

And so, ladies and gentlemen, while we have been 
diverting you, Time has been at work on the little people 
of the passing show, and now before we draw back the 
curtain to let them caper across your hearts, let us again 
thank you one and all for your courtesy in staying, and 
hope that what you see and hear may make you wiser and 
kinder and braver ; for this is a moral entertainment, good 
people, planned to show you that yesterday makes to-day 
and they both make to-morrow, and so the world spins 
round the sun. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The rumble of tbe wheels in the great stone mill across 
the Sycamore and the roar of the waters over the dam seem 
to have been in Jeanette Barclay’s ears from the day of 
her birth; for she was but a baby when the stone mill rose 
where the little red mill had stood, and beside the stone 
mill there had grown up the long stone factory wherein 
Lycurgus Mason was a man of consequence. As the trains 
whirled by strangers could see the signs in mammoth 
letters, “ The Golden Belt Mills ” on the larger building 
and on the smaller, “ The Barclay Economy Door Strip 
Factory.” Standing on the stone steps of her father’s 
house the child could read these signs clear across the mill¬ 
pond, and from these signs she learned her letters. For 
her father had more pride in that one mill on the Sycamore 
than in the scores of other mills that he controlled. And 
even in after years, when he controlled mills all over the 
West, and owned railroads upon which to take his flour to 
the sea, and ships in which to carry his flour all over the 
world, the Golden Belt Mill at Sycamore Ridge was his 
chief pride. The rumble of the wheels and the hoarse 
voice of the dam that seemed to Jeanette like the call of 
the sea, were so sweet to her father’s ears that when he 
wearied of the work of the National Provisions Company, 
with its two floors of busy offices in the Corn Exchange 
Building in the great city, he would come home to Syca¬ 
more Ridge, and go to his private office in the mill. The 
child remembers what seemed like endless days, but what 
in truth were only a few hours in a few days in a few 
years, when Daddy Barclay carried her on his shoulders 
across the bridge and sat her down barefooted and bare¬ 
headed to play upon the dam, while he in his old clothes 
prodded among the great wheels near by or sat beside her 

227 


228 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


telling her where he caught this fish or that fish or a turtle 
or a water moccasin when he was a little boy. At low 
water, she remembers that he sometimes let her wade in 
the clear stream, while he sat in Ids office near by watching 
her from the window. That was when she was only four 
years old, and she always had the strangest memory of a 
playfellow on the dam, a big girl, who fluttered in and out 
of the shadows on the stones. Jeanette talked with her, 
but no one else could see her, and once the big girl, who 
could not talk herself, stamped her feet and beckoned 
Jeanette to come away from a rock on which she was 
playing, and her father, looking out of a window, turned 
white when he saw a snake coiled beside the rock. But 
Jeanette saw the snake and was frightened, and told her 
father that Ellen saw it too, and she could not make him 
understand who Ellen was. So he only trembled and 
hugged his little girl to him tightly, and mother would 
not let the child play on the dam again all that summer. 

She made songs to fit the rhythmic murmur of the 
wheels. And always she remembered the days she had 
spent with Daddy Mason in the factory where the machines 
thumped and creaked, and where the long rubber sheets 
were cut and sewed, and the clanking rolls of tin and zinc 
curled into strips, and Daddy Mason made her a little set 
of dishes and all the things she needed in her playhouse 
from the scraps of tin and rubber, and she learned to twist 
the little tin strips on a stick and make the prettiest bright 
shiny tin curls for her dolls that a little girl ever saw in all 
the world. And once Ellen came from among the moving 
shadows of the wheels and drew Jeanette from beneath a 
great knife that fell at her feet, and when Daddy Mason 
saw what had happened he fainted, poor man, and made 
her promise never, never, so long as she lived, to tell 
Grandma Mason. And then he drove her up town, and 
they had some ice-cream, and she was sent to bed without 
her lunch because she would not tell Grandma Mason why 
grandpa bought ice-cream for her. 

It was such a beautiful life, so natural and so exactly 
what a little girl should have, that even though she went 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


229 


fco the ocean and crossed it as a child with her mother and 
grandmother, and even though she went to the mountains 
many times, her childish heart always was homesick for 
the mill, and at night in her dreams her ears were filled 
with the murmur of waters and the wordless song of cease¬ 
less wheels. And once when she came back a big girl, —- 
an exceedingly big girl with braids down her back, a girl 
in the third reader in fact, who could read everything in 
the fourth reader, because she had already done so, and 
who could read Eugene Aram in the back of the sixth, 
only she never did find out what “ gyves upon his wrists ” 
meant, — once when she came back to the dam and was 
sitting there looking at the sunset reflected in the bubbling, 
froth-flecked water at her feet, Ellen came suddenly, under 
the noise of the roaring water, and frightened Jeanette so 
that she screamed and jumped; and Ellen, who was much 
older than Jeanette — four or five and ma}^be six years 
older —-ran right over the slippery, moss-covered ridge of 
the dam, and was gone before Jeanette could call her back. 
The child never saw her playmate again, though often 
Jeanette would wonder where Ellen lived and who she 
was. As the years went by, Jeanette came to remember 
her playmate as her dream child, and once when she was 
a young miss of eighteen, and something in her hurt to be 
said, she tried to make a little poem about her dream-child 
playmate; but all she ever got was: — 

“ O eyes, so brown and clear like water sparkling over 
mossy stones.” 

So she gave it up and wrote a poem about a prince who 
carried away a maiden, and then she tore up the prince 
and the maiden, and if it were not for that line about the 
eyes in the back of her trigonometry, with a long list of 
words under it rhyming with “ stones,” she would have 
forgotten about her playfellow, and much of the memory 
of the dam and the pride she took as a child in the great 
letters upon the high stone walls of the mills, and of the 
word “ Barclay ” on the long low walls of the factory, 
might have passed from her consciousness altogether. By 
such frail links does memory bind us to our past; and yet. 


230 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


once formed, how like steel they hold us ! What we will 
be, grows from what we are, and what we are has grown 
from what we were. If Jeanette Barclay, the only child 
of a man who, when she was in her twenties, was to be one 
of the hundred richest men in his country,— so far as mere 
money goes,— had been brought up with a governess and 
a maid, and with frills and furbelows and tucks and 
Heaven knows what of silly kinks and fluffy stuff in her 
childish head, instead of being brought up in the Syca¬ 
more Ridge public schools, with Grandmother Barclay 
to teach her the things that a little girl in the fourth 
reader should know, and with a whole community of 
honest, hard-working men and women about her to teach 
her what life really is, indeed she would have lived a dif¬ 
ferent life, and when she was ready to marry — But there 
we go looking in the back of the book again, and that 
will not do at all; and besides, a little blue-eyed girl in 
gingham aprons, sitting on a cool stone with moss on its 
north side, watching the bass play among the rocks in a 
clear, deep, sun-mottled pool under a great elm tree, has 
a right to the illusions of her childhood and should not 
be hustled into long dresses and love affairs until her 
time has come. 

But the recollection of those days, so vivid and so 
sweet, is one of her choicest treasures. Of course things 
were not as she saw them. Jake Dolan was only in his 
forties then, and considered himself a young man. But 
the child remembers him as a tall, brown-eyed man whom 
she saw on state occasions in his faded blue army clothes, 
and to her he has always been the picture of a veteran. 
Some one must have told her — though she cannot remem¬ 
ber who it was— that as Jake Dolan gently descended 
the social and political scale, he sloughed off his worldly 
goods, and as he moved about in the court-house from the 
sheriff’s office to the deputy’s office, and from the deputy’s 
to the bailiff’s, and from the bailiff’s to the constable’s, and 
from the constable’s to the janitor’s room in the basement, 
he carried with him the little bundle that contained all 
Ms worldly goods, the thin blue uniform, spotless and trim, 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


23\ 


and his lieutenant’s commission, and mustering-out papers 
from the army. It is odd, is it not, that this prosaic old 
chap, who smoked a clay pipe, and whose only accomplish¬ 
ment was the ability to sing “The Hat me Father Wore,” 
under three drinks, and the “ Sword of Bunker Hill,” 
under ten, should have epitomized all that was heroic in 
this child’s memory. As for General Philemon Ward, —• 
a dear old crank who, when Jeanette was born, was vot¬ 
ing with the Republican party for the first time since the 
war, and who ran twice for President on some strange 
issue before she was in long dresses, — General Ward, 
whose children’s ages could be guessed by the disturbers 
of the public peace, whose names they bore, — Eli Thayer, 
Mary Livermore, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Wil¬ 
lard, Neal Dow, Belva Lockwood, and Helen Gougar, 
— General Ward, who scorned her father’s offer of ten 
thousand dollars a year as state counsel for the National 
Provisions Company, and went out preaching fiat money 
and a subtreasury for the farmers’ crops, trusting to 
God and the flower garden about his little white house, 
to keep the family alive—it is odd that Jeanette’s 
childish impression was that General Ward was a man of 
consequence in the world. Perhaps his white necktie, his 
long black coat, and his keen lean face, or his prematurely 
gray hair, gave her some sort of a notion of his dignity, 
but whatever gave her that notion she kept it, and though 
in her later life there came a passing time when she hated 
him, she did not despise him. And what with the song 
that she heard the bands playing all over the country, the 
song that the bands sometimes played for Americans in 
Europe, very badly, as though it was being translated from 
English into broken French or Italian, what with Watts 
McHurdie’s fame and with his verses that appeared in the 
Banner on formal occasions, the girl built a fancy of him 
as one of the world’s great poets— some one like Shake¬ 
speare or Milton; and she was well into her teens before 
she realized the truth, that he was an excellent harness 
maker who often brought out of his quaint little dream 
world odd-shaped fancies in rhyme, — some grotesque. 


232 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


some ridiculous, and some that seemed pretty for a 
moment, — and who under the stress of a universal emo¬ 
tion had rhymed one phase of our common nature and set 
it to a simple tune that moved men deeply without regard 
to race or station. So she lived in her child world — 
a world quite different from the real world — a world 
gilded by the sunrise of consciousness; and because the 
angels loved her and kept her heart clean, the gilding 
never quite wore off her heroes. And nothing that Heaven 
gives us in this world is so blessed as to have the gilding 
stick to the images of our youth. In Jeanette’s case even 
Lige Bemis—Judge Bemis, she had been taught to call 
him — never showed the tar under the gilding to her eyes. 
Her first memory of him was in her father’s office in the 
big City. He was a tall man; with gray hair that became 
him well, with sharp black eyes, and enough flesh on his 
bones to carry the frock-coats he always wore and give 
him a corporosity just escaping the portly. She remem¬ 
bers seeing the name “ E. W. Bemis” in gold letters on the 
door of his room, and not being able to figure out how a 
man whose name began with “ E ” or “ W ” could be called 
Lige. He was General Counsel of the Corn Belt Railroad 
in those days, when her father was president of the road, 
and she knew that he was a man always to be considered. 
And when, as a woman grown, she learned the truth about 
Lige Bemis, it was hard to believe, for all she could find 
against him was his everlasting smile. 

It is a curious and withal a beautiful thing to see a 
child come into the worn and weary world that we grown¬ 
ups have made, and make it over into another world alto¬ 
gether. Perhaps the child’s eye and the child's heart, 
fresh from God, see and feel more clearly and more justly 
than we do. For this much is sure—Jeanette was right 
in keeping to the end the image of Colonel Martin Cul¬ 
pepper as a knight-errant, who needed only a bespangled 
steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a foolish cause to set 
him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this humdrum 
world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come 
rattling down Main Street into the child’s heart, sitting 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


233 


with some dignity in his weather-beaten buggy, while in 
stead of shining armour and a glistening helmet he wore 
nankeen trousers, a linen coat, and a dignified panama hat. 
Moreover, it is stencilled into her memory indelibly that 
the colonel was the first man in this wide world to raise 
his hat to her. 

Now it should not be strange that this world was a sad 
jumble of fiction and of facts to a child’s eyes; for to 
many an older pair of eyes it has all seemed a puzzle. 
Even the shrewd, kind brown eyes of Jacob Dolan often 
failed to see things as they were, and what his eyes did 
see sometimes bewildered him. By day Dolan saw Rob¬ 
ert Hendricks, president of the Exchange National Bank, 
president and manager of the Sycamore Ridge Light, 
Heat, and Power Company, proprietor of the Hendricks 
Mercantile Company, treasurer and first vice-president of 
the new Western Wholesale Grocery, and chairman of 
his party’s congressional central committee, and Dolan’s 
eyes saw a hard, busy man—a young man, it is true; a 
tall, straight, rather lean, rope-haired young man in his 
thirties, with frank blue eyes, that turned rather suddenly 
upon one as if to frighten out a secret. The man seemed 
real enough to Dolan, from the wide crown of his slightly 
bald, V-shaped head, to his feet with the hard click in 
the heels ; and yet that man paid no particular attention 
to Dolan. It was “Hello, Jake,” with a nod, as they 
passed, maybe only an abstracted stare and a grunt. But 
at night, as they walked together over the town under the 
stars or moon, a lonely soul rose out of the tall body and 
spread over the face. 

Dolan kept to his pipe and Hendricks to his cigar. 
But these were the only marks of caste between them. 
One night Hendricks led the way across the bridge down 
the river road and into the fields. They walked far up 
the stream and their conversation had consisted largely of 
“Watch out,” “All right,” “I see,” “This is the best 
way.” They loitered down a dark lane shaded by hedge¬ 
rows until they came to a little wooden bridge and sat 
down. Dolan looked at the stars, while a pipe and a cigar 


234 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


had burned out before Hendricks spoke, “Well, chatter* 
box?” . „ 

“ I was bothered with a question of mistaken identity,” 
replied Dolan. To the silence he answered : “ Me myself. 
I’m the man. Do you happen to know who I am?” 
Hendricks broke a splinter from the wood under him, and 
Dolan continued: “Of course you don’t, and neither do I. 
For example, I go down into Union township before elec¬ 
tion and visit with the boys. I bring a box of cigars and 
maybe a nip under the buggy seat, and maybe a few stray 
five-dollar bills for the lads that drive the wagons that 
haul the voters to the polls. I go home, and I says to 
myself: ‘ I have that bailiwick to a man. No votes there 
against Jake.’ But the morning after election I see Jake 
didn’t get but two votes in the township. Yery well. Now 
who did they vote against ? Surely not against the genial 
obliging rollicking Irish lad whose face I shave every 
other morning. What could they possibly have against 
him? No — they voted against that man Dolan, who got 
drunk at the Fair and thro wed the gate receipts into the 
well, and tried to shoo the horses off the track into the 
crowd at the home-stretch of the trotting race. He’s 
the man they plugged. And there’s another one — him 
that confesses to Father Van Sandt.” Dolan shook his 
head sadly and sighed. “ He’s a black-hearted wretch. 
If you want to see how a soul will look in its underwear, 
get an Irishman to confess to a Dutchman.” The chirp 
of crickets arose in the silence, and after a time Dolan con¬ 
cluded, “ And now there abideth these three, me that I 
shave, me that they vote against, and me that the Father 
knows; and the greatest of these is charity — I dunno.” 

The soul beside him on the bridge came back from a 
lilac bower of other years, with a girl’s lips glowing upon 
his and the beat of a girl’s heart throbbing against his 
own. The soul was seared with images that must ntver 
find spoken words, and it moved the lips to say after 
exhaling a deep breath from its body, “Well, let’s go 
home.” There, too, was a question of identity. Who was 
Robert Hendricks? Was he the man chosen to lead his 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


235 


party organization because be was clean above reproach 
and a man of ideals; was he the man who was trusted 
with the money of the people of his town and county im¬ 
plicitly ; or was he the man who knew that on page 234 
of the cash ledger for 1879 in the county treasurer’s office 
in the Garrison County court-house there was a forgery 
in his own handwriting to cover nine thousand dollars 
of his father’s debt? Or was he the man who for seven 
years had crept into a neighbour’s garden on a certain 
night in April to smell the lilac blossoms and always had 
found them gone, and had stood there rigid, with upturned 
face and clenched fists, cursing a fellow-man ? Or was he 
the man who in the county convention of his party had 
risen pale with anger, and had walked across the floor 
and roared his denunciation of Elijah W. Bemis as a 
boodler and a scoundrel squarely to the man’s gray, smirk¬ 
ing face and chattering teeth, and then had reached down, 
and grabbed the trapped bribe-giver by the scruff of the 
neck and literally thrown him out of the convention, while 
the crowd went mad with applause? As he went home 
that night following the convention, walking by the side 
of Dolan in silence, he wondered which -of all his aliases 
he really was. At the gate of the Hendricks home the 
two men stopped. Hendricks smiled quizzically as he 
asked: “Well, I give it up, Jake. By the way, did you 
ever meet me? ” 

The brown eyes of the Irishman beamed an instant 
through the night, before he hurried lightly down the 
street. 

And so with all of this hide-and-seek of souls, now peer¬ 
ing from behind eyes and now far away patting one — two 
— three upon some distant base, with all these queer goings- 
on inside of people here in this strange world, it is no 
wonder that when the angels brought Jeanette to the Bar¬ 
clays, they left her much to learn and many things to study 
about. So she had to ask questions. But questions often 
reveal more than answers. At least once they revealed 
much, when she sat on the veranda of the Barclay home 
a fine spring evening with all the company there. Aunt 


236 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Molly was there; and Uncle Bob Hendricks was there, 
the special guest of Grandma Barclay. Uncle Adrian 
was away on a trip somewhere; but Uncle Colonel and 
Grandma Culpepper and all the others were there listen¬ 
ing to father’s new German music-box, and no one shouid 
blame a little girl, sitting shyly on the stone steps, trying 
to make something out of the absurd world around her, if 
she piped out when the talk stopped: — 

“ Mother, why does Aunt Molly cut off her lilac buds 
before they bloom ? ” 

And when her mother assured her that Aunt Molly did 
nothing of the kind, and when Uncle Bob Hendricks 
looked up and saw Aunt Molly go pale under her powder, 
and when Aunt Molly said, “ Why, Jane — the child must 
have dreamed that,” no one in this wide world must blame 
a little girl for opening her eyes as wide as she could, and 
lifting her little voice as strongly as she could, and saying : 
“Why, Aunt Molly, you know I saw you last night — 
when I stayed with you. You know I did, ’cause I looked 
out of the window and spokened to you. You know I 
did — don’t you remember?” And no one must blame 
the mother for shaking her finger at Jeanette, and no one 
must blame Jeanette for sitting there shaking a protesting 
head, and screwing up her little face, trying to make the 
puzzle out. 

And when, later in the evening, Daddy Barclay went 
over to the mill with his work, and Uncle Bob left in the 
twilight, and Aunt Molly and mother were alone in 
mother’s room, how should a little girl know what the 
crying was all about, and how should a little girl under¬ 
stand when a small woman, looking in a mirror, and dab¬ 
bing her face with a powder rag, said to mother, who 
knows everything in the world, and all about the angels 
that brought you here : “ Oh, Jane, Jane, you don’t know 
— you don’t understand. There are things that I couldn’t 
make you understand — and I mustn’t even think of them.” 

Surely it is a curious world for little girls — a passing 
curious world, when there are things in it that even 
mothers cannot understand. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


23V 


So Jeanette turned her face to the wall and went to 
sleep, leaving Aunt Molly powdering her nose and ask¬ 
ing mother, “Does it look all right now—’’ and adding, 
“ Oh, I’m such a fool.” In so illogical a world, the reader 
must not be allowed to think that Molly Brownwell 
lamented the folly of mourning for a handsome young 
gentleman in blue serge with white spats on his shoes and 
a Byronic collar and a fluffy necktie of the period. Far 
be it from her to lament that sentiment as folly; however, 
when she looked at her eyes in the mirror and saw her 
nose, she felt that tears were expensive and reproached 
herself for them. But so long as these souls of ours, 
whatever they may be, are caged in our bodies, our poor 
bodies will have to bear witness to their prisoners. If 
the soul smiles the body shines, and if the soul frets the 
body withers. And Molly Brownwell saw in the looking- 
glass that night more surely than ever before that her face 
was beginning to slump. Her cheeks were no longer firm, 
and at her eyes were the stains of tears that would not 
wipe off, but crinkled the skin at the temples and deepened 
the shadows into wide salmon-coloured lines that fell away 
from each side of the nose so that no trick could hide 
them. Moreover, the bright eyes that used to flash into 
Bob Hendricks’ steady blue eyes had grown tired, and 
women who did not know, wondered why such a pretty 
girl had broken so. 

The Culpeppers had remained with the Barclays for 
dinner, and the hour was late for the Ridge — after nine 
o’clock, and as the departing guests went down the long 
curved walk of Barclay pride to the Barclay gate, they 
saw a late April moon rising over the trees by the mill. 
They clanged the tall iron gate behind them, and stood a 
moment watching the moon. For the colonel never grew 
too old to notice it. He put his arms about his wife and 
his daughter tenderly, and said before they started up the 
street, “It never grows old — does it?” And he pressed 
his wife to him gently and repeated, “Does it, my dear-=- 
it’s the same old moon; the one we used to have in Vir* 
ginia before the war, isn’t it ? ” 


238 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


His wife smiled at him placidly and said, “Now, pa— : ' - 

Whereupon the colonel squeezed his daughter lustily, 
and exclaimed, “Well, Molly still loves me, anyway. 
Don’t you, Molly ? ” And the younger woman patted 
his cheek, and then they started for home. 

“ Papa, how much money has John?” asked the daughter, 
as they walked along. 

A man always likes to be regarded as an authority in 
financial matters, and the colonel stroked his goatee wisely 
before replying: “ U-h-m-m, let me see — I don’t exactly 
know. Bob and I were talking about it the other day — 
after I bought John’s share in College Heights — last 
year, to be exact. Of course he’s got the mill and it’s all 
paid for — say a hundred thousand dollars — and that old 
wheat land he got back in the seventies — he’s cleaned all 
of that up. I should say that and the mill were easily 
worth half a million, and they’re both clear. That’s all 
in sight.” The colonel ruminated a moment and then 
continued : “ About the rest — it’s a guess. Some say a 
million, some say ten. All I know in point of fact, my 
dear, to get right down to bed-rock, is that L}murgus says 
they are turning out two or three car-loads of the strips a 
year. I wouldn’t believe Lycurgus on a stack of Bibles 
as high as his head, but little Thayer Ward, who works 
down there in the shipping department, told the general 
the same thing, and Bob says he knows John gets ten 
dollars apiece for them now, so that’s a million dollars a 
year income he’s got. He handles grain and flour way up 
in Minnesota, and back as far as Ohio, and west to Cali 
fornia. But what he actually owns, — that is, whether he 
rents the mills or, to be exact, steals them, — I haven’t 
any idea — not the slightest notion in the world, in point 
of fact — not the slightest notion.” 

As they passed through Main Street it was deserted, 
save in the billiard halls, and as no one seemed inclined to 
talk, the colonel took up the subject of Barclay : “ Say we 
call it five million —five million in round numbers ; that’s 
a good deal of money for a man to have and haggle a 
month over seventy-five dollars the way he did with me 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


235 


when he sold me his share of College Heights. But/ 1 ' 
added the colonel, 44 1 suppose if I had that much I’d value 
it more.” The women were thinking of other things, and 
the colonel addressed the night: 44 Man gets an appetite 
for money just as he does for liquor — just like the love 
for whiskey, I may say.” He shook his sides as he medi¬ 
tated aloud : 44 But as for me — I guess I’ve got so I can 
take it or let it alone. Eh, ma ? ” 

44 1 didn’t catch what you were saying, pa,” answered 
his wife. 44 1 was just thinking whether we had potatoes 
enough t'o make hash for breakfast ; have we, Molly ? ” 

As the women were discussing the breakfast, two men 
came out of a cross street, and the colonel, who was slightly 
in advance of his women, hailed the men with, 44 Hello 
there, Bob — you and Jake out here carrying on your 
illicit friendship in the dark ? ” 

The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at 
the corner. Molly Brownwell’s heart throbbed as they 
met, and she thought of the rising moon, and in an instant 
her brain was atire with a hope that shamed her. Three 
could not walk abreast on the narrow sidewalk up the 
hill, and when she heard Hendricks say after the group 
had parleyed a moment, 44 Well, Jake, good night; I’ll go 
on home with the colonel,” she managed the pairing off 
so that the young man fell to her, and the colonel and 
Mrs. Culpepper walked before the younger people, and 
they all talked together. But at Lincoln Avenue, the 
younger people disconnected themselves from the talk of 
the elders, and finally lagged a few feet behind. When 
they reached the gate the colonel called back, “Better 
come in and visit a minute, Bob,” and Molly added, 44 Yes, 
Bob, it’s early yet.” 

But what she said with her voice did not decide the 
matter for him. It was her eyes. And what he said 
with his voice is immaterial — it was what his eyes re¬ 
plied that the woman caught. What he said was, 44 Well, 
just for a minute, Colonel,” and the party walked up the 
steps of the veranda, and Bob and Molly and the colonel 
sat down. 



240 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Mrs. Culpepper stood for a moment and tlien said, 
“ Well, Bob, you must excuse me — I forgot to set my 
sponge, and there isn’t a bit of bread in the house for 
Sunday.” Whereupon she left them, and when the colo¬ 
nel had talked himself out he left them, and when the two 
were alone there came an awkward silence. In the years 
they had been apart a thousand things had stirred in their 
hearts to say at this time, yet all their voices spoke was, 
“Well, Molly?” and “Well, Bob?” The moon was in 
their faces as it shone through the elm at the gate. The 
man turned his chair so that he could look at her, and after 
satisfying his eyes he broke the silence with, “ Seven 
years.” 

And she returned, “ Seven years the thirteenth of 
\pril.” 

The man played a tune with his fingers and a foot and 
fi'aid nothing more. The woman finally spoke. “ Did you 
know it was the thirteenth ? ” 

“ Yes,” he replied, “ father died the ninth. I have often 
counted it up.” He added shortly after: “It’s a long 
time — seven years ! My ! but it has been a long time ! ” 

“ I have wondered if }^ou have thought so,” a pause, 
“too ! ” 

Their hearts were beating too fast for thoughts to come 
coherently. The fever of madness was upon them, and 
numbed their wills so that they could not reach beneath 
the surface of their consciousnesses to find words for their 
emotions. Then also there was in each a deadening, flam¬ 
ing sense of guilt. Shame is a dumb passion, and these 
two, who in the fastnesses of a thousand nights had told 
themselves that what they sought was good and holy, now 
found in each other’s actual presence a gripping at the 
tongue’s root that held them dumb. 

“Yes, I — ” the man mumbled, “yes, I — I fancied 
you understood that well enough.” 

“But you have been busy ?” she asked; “very busy. 
Bob, ana oh, Tve been so proud of all that you’ve done.” 
It was the woman’s tongue that first found a sincere word. 

The mL£f replied, “ Well — I — I am glad you have.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


24a 


It seemed to the woman a long time since her father 
had gone. Her conscience was making minutes out of 
seconds. She said, “ Don’t you think it’s getting late ? ” 
but did not rise. 

The man looked at his watch and answered, “ Only 
10.34.” He started to rise, but she checked him breath¬ 
lessly. 

“Oh, Bob, Bob, sit down. This isn’t enough for these 
long years. I had so many things to say to you.” She 
hesitated and cried, “Why are we so stupid now — now 
when every second counts ? ” 

He bent slightly toward her and said in a low voice, 
“ So that’s why your lilacs have never bloomed again.” 

She looked at her chair arm and asked, “ Did you 
know they hadn’t bloomed ? ” 

“ Oh, Molly, of course I knew,” he answered, and then 
went on: “ Every thirteenth of April I have slipped 
through the fence and come over here, rain or shine, at 
night, to see if they were blooming. But I didn’t know 
why they never bloomed ! ” 

The woman rose and walked a step toward the door, and 
turned her head away. When she spoke it was after a sob, 
44 Bob, I couldn’t bear it — I just couldn’t bear it, Bob ! ” 
He groaned and put his hands to his forehead and 
rested his elbow on the chair arm. 44 Oh, Molly, Molly, 
Molly,” he sighed, “ poor, poor little Molly.” After a 
pause he said.: 44 1 won’t ever bother you again. It 
doesn’t do any good.” A silence followed in which the 
woman turned her face to him, tear-stained and wretched, 
with the seams of her heart all torn open and showing 
through it. 44 It only hurts,” the man continued, and 
then he groaned aloud, 44 Oh, God, how it hurts ! ” 

She sank back into her chair and buried her face in the 
arm farthest from him and her body shook, but she did 
not speak. He stared at her dry-eyed for a minute, that 
tolled by so slowly that he rose at the end of it, fearful 
that his stay was indecorously long. 

44 1 think I should go now,” he said, as he passed her. 
“Oh, no 1” she cried. “Not yet, not just yet.” She 


242 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


caught his arm and he stopped, as she stood beside him, 
trembling, haggard, staring at him out of dead, mad eyes. 
There was no colour in her blotched face, and in the moon* 
light the red rims of her eyes looked leaden, and her voice 
was unsteady. At times it broke in sobbing croaks, and 
she spoke with loose jaws, as one in great terror. “ I 
want you to know — ” she paused at the end of each little 
hiccoughed phrase— “that I have not forgotten — ” 
she caught her breath—“that I think of you every 
day — ” she wiped her eyes with a limp handkerchief — 
“ every day and every night, and pray for you, though I 
don’t believe — ” she whimpered as she shuddered — 
“ that God cares much about me.” 

He tried to stop her, and would have gone, but she put 
a hand upon his shoulder and pleaded: “Just another 
minute. Oh, Bob,” she cried, and her voice broke again, 
“ don’t forget me. Don’t forget me. When I was so 
sick last year — you remember,” she pleaded, “ I raved 
in delirium a week.” She stopped as if afraid to go on, 
then began to shake as with a palsy. “ I raved of every¬ 
thing under God's sun, and through it all. Bob — not one 
word of you. Oli, I knew that wouldn’t do.” She 
swayed upon his arm. “ I kept a little corner of my soul 
safe to guard you.” She sank back into her chair and 
chattered, “Oh, I guarded you.” 

She was crying like a child. He stood over her and 
touched her dishevelled hair with the tips of his fingers and 
said : “I oughtn't to stay, Molly.” 

And she motioned him away with her face hidden and 
sobbed, “No — I know it.” 

He paused a moment on the step before her and then 
said, “ Good-by, Molly — I’m going now.” And she 
heard him walking down the yard on the grass, so that his 
footsteps would not arouse the house. It seemed to them 
both that it was midnight, but time had moved slowly, 
and when the spent, broken woman crept into the house, 
and groped her way to her room, she did not make a light, 
but slipped into bed without looking at her scarred, 
shameful face. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


In the sunshine of that era of world-wide prosperity in 
the eighties, John Barclay made much hay. He spent 
little time in Sycamore Ridge, and his private car might 
be found in Minnesota to-day and at the end of the week 
in California. As president of the Corn Belt Road and as 
controlling director in the North Lake Line, he got 
rates on other railroads for his grain products that no com¬ 
petitor could duplicate. And when a competitor began to 
grow beyond the small fry class, Barclay either bought 
him out or built a mill beside the offender and crushed 
him out. Experts taught him the value of the chaff from 
the grain. He had a dozen mills to which he shipped the 
refuse from his flour and heaven only knows what else, 
and turned the stuff into various pancake flours and break¬ 
fast foods. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in 
advertising — in a day when large appropriations for ad¬ 
vertising were unusual. And the words “ Barclay’s Best’' 
glared at the traveller from crags in the Rocky Mountains 
and from the piers of all the great harbour bridges. He 
used Niagara to glorify the name of Barclay, and “ Use 
Barclay’s Best” had to be washed off the statue of the 
Goddess of Liberty in New York Harbour. The greenish 
brown eyes of the little man were forever looking into 
space, and when he caught a dream, instead of letting 
it go, he called a stenographer and made it come true- 
In those days he was beginning to realize that an idea 
plus a million dollars will become a fact if a man but 
says the word, whereas the same idea minus a million 
remains a dream. The great power of money was slowly 
becoming part of the man’s consciousness. During the 
years that were to come, he came to think that there 
was nothing impossible. Any wish he had might be 
gratifi id. Such a consciousness drives men mad, 

243 


244 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Bat in those prosperous days, while the millions were 
piling up, Barclay kept his head. All the world was buy¬ 
ing then, but wherever he could Barclay sold. He bought 
only where he had to, and paid cash for what he bought. 
He did not owe a dollar for anything. He had no equi¬ 
ties ; his titles were all good. And as he neared his forties 
he believed that he could sell what he had at forced sale 
for many millions. He was supposed to be much richer 
than he was, but the one thing that he knew about it was 
that scores of other men had more than he. So lie kept star¬ 
ing into space and pressing the button for his stenographer, 
and at night wherever his work found him, whether in 
Boston or in Chicago or in San Francisco, he hunted up 
the place where he could hear the best music, and sat lis¬ 
tening with his eyes closed. He always kept his note-book 
in his hand, when Jane was not with him, and when an 
idea came to him inspired by the music, he jotted it down, 
and the next day, if it stood the test of a night’s sleep, 
he turned the idea into an event. 

In planning his work he was ruthless. He learned 
that by bribing men in the operating department of any 
railroad he could find out what his competitors were doing. 
And in the main offices of the National Provisions Com¬ 
pany two rooms full of clerks were devoted to considering 
the duplicate way-bills of every car of flour or grain or 
grain product not shipped by the Barclay companies. 
Thus he was able to delay the cars of his competitors, 
and get his own cars through on time. Thus lie was able 
to bribe buyers in wholesale establishments to push his 
products. And with Lige Bemis manipulating the rail¬ 
road and judiciary committees in the legislatures of ten 
states, no laws were enacted which might hamper Barclay’s 
activities. 

“ Do you know, Lucy,” said General Ward to his wife 
one night when they were discussing Barclay and his ways 
and works, “sometimes I think that what that boy saw 
at Wilson’s Creek, — the horrible bloodshed, the deadly 
spectacle of human suffering at the hospital wagon, some 
way blinded his soul’s eye to right and wrong. It was all 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


245 


a man could stand; the picture must have seared the hoy’s 
heart like a fire.” 

Mrs. Ward, who was mending little clothes in the light 
of the dining-room lamp, put down her work a moment 
and said: “I have alwa} r s thought the colonel had some 
such idea. For once when he was speaking of the way 
John stole that wheat land, he said, ‘Well, poor John, he 
got a wound at Wilson’s Creek that never will heal,’ and 
when I asked if he meant his foot, the colonel smiled like 
a woman and said gently, ‘No, Miss Lucy, not there — 
not there at all; in his heart, my dear, in his heart I * ” 

And the general’s eyes met the eyes of a mother wan¬ 
dering toward a boy of nine sleeping, tired out, on a couch 
near ; he was a little boy with dark hair, and red 
tanned cheeks, and his mouth — such a soft innocent 
mouth — curved prettily, like the lips of children in old 
pictures, and as he slept he smiled, and the general, meeting 
the mother’s eyes coming back from the little face, wiped 
his glasses and nodded his head in understanding; in a 
moment they both rose and stood hand in hand over their 
child, and the mother said in a trembling voice, “And his 
mother prayed for him, too -—she has told me so — so many 
times.” 

But the people of Sycamore Ridge and of the Missis¬ 
sippi Valley did not indulge in any fine speculations upon 
the meaning of life when they thought of John Barclay* 
He had become considerable of a figure in the world, and 
the Middle West was proud of him. For those were the 
days of tin cornices, false fronts, vain pretences, and bor¬ 
rowed plumes bought with borrowed money. Other 
people’s capital was easy to get, and every one was rich. 
Debt was regarded as an evidence of prosperity, and the 
town ran mad with the rest of the country. It is not 
strange then that Mrs. Watts McHurdie, she who for four 
years during the war dispensed “beefsteak — ham and 
eggs—breakfast bacon — tea — coffee — iced tea — or—- 
milk ” at the Thayer House, and for ten years there¬ 
after sold dry-goods and kept books at Dorman’s store, 
should have become tainted with the infection of the 


246 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


times. But it is strange that she could have inoculated 
so sane a little man as Watts. Still, there were Delilah 
and Samson, and of course Samson was a much larger man 
than Watts, and Nellie McHurdie was considerably larger 
than Delilah; and you never can tell about those things, 
anyway. Also it must not be forgotten that Nellie Mc¬ 
Hurdie since her marriage had become Grand Preceptress 
in one lodge, Worthy Matron in another. Senior Vice 
Commander in a third, and Worshipful Benefactress in 
a fourth, to say nothing of positions as corresponding 
secretary, delegate to the state convention, Keeper of 
the Records and Seals, Scribe, — and perhaps Pharisee, 
— in half a dozen others, all in the interests of her hus¬ 
band’s political future; and with such obvious devotion 
before him, it is small wonder after all that he succumbed. 

But he would not run for office. He had trouble every 
spring persuading her, but he always did persuade her, 
that this wasn’t his year, that conditions were wrong, and 
that next year probably would be better. But he allowed 
her to call their home 44 The Bivouac,” and have the name 
cut in stone letters on the horse-block; and he sat by 
meekly for many long years at lodges, at church entertain¬ 
ments, at high school commencement exercises, at public 
gatherings of every sort, and heard her sing a medley of 
American patriotic songs which wound up with the song 
that made him famous. It was five drinks in Jake Dolan 
that stopped the medley, when the drinks aforesaid in¬ 
spired him to rise grandly from his chair at the front of 
the hall at an installation of officers of Henry Schnitzler 
Post of the Grand Army, and stalk majestically out of the 
room, while the singing was in progress, saying as he 
turned back at the door, before thumping heavily down 
the stairs, 44 Well, I’m getting pretty damn tired of tliatl ” 
Mrs. McHurdie insisted that Watts should whip Dolan, 
and it is possible that at home that night Watts did smite 
his breast and shake his head fiercely, for in the morning 
the neighbours saw Mrs. McHurdie walk to the gate with 
him, talking earnestly and holding his arm as if to restrain 
him; moreover, when Watts had turned the corner of 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


247 


Lincoln Avenue and had disappeared into Main Street 
she hurried over to the Culpeppers’ to have the colonel 
warn Dolan that Watts was a dangerous man. But when 
Dolan, sober, walked into the harness shop that afternoon 
to apologize, the little harness maker came down the aisle 
of saddles in his shop blinking over his spectacles and with 
his hand to his mouth to strangle a smile, and before 
Dolan could speak, Watts said, “So am I—-Jake Dolan 
— so am I; but if you ever do that again, I’ll have to kill 

y°u-” 

It happened in the middle eighties — maybe a year 
before the college was opened — maybe a year after, 
though Gabriel Carnine, talking of it some twenty years 
later, insists that it happened two years after the opening 
of the college. But no one ever has mentioned the matter 
to Watts, so the exact date may not be recorded, though 
it is an important date in the uses of this narrative, as will 
be seen later. All agree —the colonel, the general, Dolan, 
Fernald, and perhaps two dozen old soldiers who were at 
the railroad station waiting for the train to take them to 
the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, — that it was a fine morning in September. Of 
course John Barclay contributed the band. He afterwards 
confessed to that, explaining that Nellie had told him 
that Watts never had received the attention he should 
receive either in the town or the state or the nation, and 
so long as Watts was a National Delegate for the first time 
in his life, and so long as she had twice been voted for as 
National President of the Ladies’ Aid. and might get it 
this time, the band would be, as she put it, “so nice to take 
along”; and as John never forgot the fact that Nellie asked 
him to sing at her wadding, he hired the band. Thus are 
we bound to our past. But the band was not what caused 
the comrades to gasp, though its going was a surprise. 
And when they heard it turn into Main Street far up by 
Lincoln Avenue, playing the good old tune that the town 
loved for Watts’ sake and for the sake of the time and the 
place and the heroic deeds it celebrated, — when they 
heard the band, the colonel asked the general, “ Where’s 


248 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Watts?” and they suspected that the band might be 
bringing him to the depot. 

Heaven knows the town had bought uniforms and 
new horns for the band often enough for it to do some' 
thing public-spirited once in a while without being paid 
for it. So the band did not come to the town as a shock 
in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack — 
the new glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright 
spick-and-span hearse harness on the horses; in those 
bustling days a quarter was nothing, and you can ride all 
over the Ridge for a quarter ; so when the comrades at 
die depot, in their blue soldiers’ clothes, their campaign 
fiats, and their delegates’ badges, saw the band followed 
oy the hack, they were of course interested, but that was 
ail. And when some of the far-sighted ones observed that 
the top of the hack was spread back royally, they com¬ 
mented upon the display of pomp, but the comment was 
not extraordinar}^. But when from the street, as the 
oand stopped, there came cheers from the people, the boys 
at the station felt that something unusual was about to 
come to them. So they watched the band march down 
the long sheet-iron-covered station walk, and the hack 
move along beside the band boys ; and the poet’s com¬ 
rades-in-arms saw him sitting beside the poet’s wife,—• 
the two in solemn state. And then the old boys beheld 
Watts McHurdie, — little Watts McHurdie, with his 
grizzled beard combed, with his gold-rimmed Sunday 
glassed far down on his nose so that he could see over 
them, and — wonder of wonders, they saw a high shiny 
new silk hat wobbling over his modest head. 

He stumbled out of the open hack with his hand on the 
great stiff awkward thing, obviously afraid it would fall 
off, and she that was Nellie Logan, late of the Thayer 
House and still later of Dorman’s store, and later still most 
worshipful, most potent, most gorgeous and most radiant 
archangel of seven secret and mysterious covenants, con¬ 
claves, and inner temples, stood beaming at the pitiful 
sight, clearly proud of her shameless achievement. Watts, 
putting his hand to his mouth to cover his smile, grabbed 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


249 


the shiny thing again as he nodded cautiously at the crowd. 
Then he followed her meekly to the women’s waiting room, 
where the wives and sisters of the comrades were assembled 
— and they, less punctilious than the men, burst forth 
with a scream of joy, and the agony was over. 

And thus Watts McHurdie went to his greatest earthly 
glory. The delegation from the Ridge, with the band, had 
John Barclay’s private car; that was another surprise 
which Mrs. McHurdie arranged, and when they got 
to Washington, where the National Encampment was, 
opinions differ as to when Watts McHurdie had his 
high tide of happiness. The colonel says that it was in 
the great convention, where the Sycamore Ridge band sat 
in front of the stage, and where Watts stood in front of 
the band and led the great throng, — beginning with his 
cracked little heady tenor, and in an instant losing it in 
the awful diapason of ten thousand voices singing his old 
song with him ; and where, when it was over, General 
Grant came down the platform, making his wa y rather 
clumsily among the chairs, and at last in front of the 
whole world grasped Watts McHurdie’s hands, and the 
two little men, embarrassed by the formality of it all, 
stood for a few seconds looking at each other with tears 
glistening in their speaking eyes. 

But Jake Dolan, who knows something of human nature, 
does not hold to the colonel’s view about the moment of 
McHurdie’s greatest joy. “We were filing down the 
Avenue again, thousands and ten thousands of us, as we 
filed past the White House nearly twenty years before. 
And the Sycamore Ridge band was cramming its lungs into 
the old tune, when up on the reviewing stand, beside all 
the big bugs and with the President there himself, stood 
little Watts, plug hat in hand, bowing to the boys. ’Twas 
a lovely sight, and he had been there for two mortal hours 
before we boys got down— there was the Kansas boys and 
the Iowa boys and some from Missouri, carrying the old 
flag we fought under at Wilson’s Creek. Watts saw us 
down the street and heard the old band play ; a dozen 
other bands had played that tune that day ; but Billy 


250 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Dorman’s tuba had its own kind of a rag in it, and Watts 
knew it. I seen him a-waving his hat at the boys, almost 
as soon as they saw him, and as the band came nearer and 
nearer I saw the little man’s face begin to crack, and as lie 
looked down the line and saw them Kansas and Iowa 
soldiers, I seen him give one whoop, and throw that plug 
hat hellwards over the crowd and jump down from that 
band stand like a wild man and make for the gang. He 
was blubbering like a calf when he caught step with me, 
and he yelled so as to reach my ears above the roar of the 
crowds and the blatting of the bands—yelled with his 
voice ripped to shreds that fluttered out ragged from the 
torn bosom of him, ‘Jake — Jake — how I would like 
to get drunk —just this once! ’ And we went on down the 
avenue together—him bareheaded, hay-footing and straw¬ 
footing it the same as in the old days.” 

Jake always paused at this point and shook his head 
sorrowfully, and then continued dolefully : “ But ’twas no 
use ; he was caught and took away; some says it was to 
see the pictures in the White House, and some says it was 
to a reception given by the Relief Corps to the officers 
elect of the Ladies’ Aid, where he was pawed over by a 
lot of old girls who says, ‘ Yes, I’m so glad — what name 
please — oh, — McHurdie, surely not the McHurdie; O dear 
me — Sister Mclntire, come right here, this is the McHur¬ 
die — you know I sang your song when I was a little girl * 
— which was a lie, unless Watts wrote it for the Mexican 
War, and lie didn’t. And then some one else comes wad¬ 
dling up and says, ‘O dear me, Mr. McHurdie — you 
don’t know how glad I am to see the author of “ Home, 
Sweet Home,” ’ and Watts blinks his eyes and pleads not 
guilt} r ; and she says, ‘ O dear, excuse the mistake ; well, 
I’m sure you wrote something?’ And Watts, being sick 
of love, as Solomon says in his justly celebrated and popu¬ 
lar song, Watts looks through his Sunday glasses and 
doesn’t see a blame thing, and smiles and says calmly, 
‘ No, madam, you mistake— I am a simple harness maker.’ 
And she sidles off looking puzzled, to make room for the 
one from Massachusetts, who stares at him through her 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


251 


glasses and says, ‘ So you’re Watts McHurdie — who wrote 
the — ’ ‘ The same, madam,’ says Watts, courting favour. 
4 Well,’ says the high-browed one, ‘well — you are not at 
all what I imagined.’ And ‘Neither are you, madam,’ 
returns Watts, as sweet as a dill pickle; and she goes 
away to think it over and wonder if he meant it that way. 
No — that’s where Nellie made her mistake. It wouldn’t 
have hurt him — just once. But what’s done’s done, and 
can’t be undone, as the man said when he fished his wife 
out of the lard vat.” 

Now this all seems a long way from John Barclay—. 
the hero of this romance. Yet the departure of Watts 
McHurdie for his scene of glory was on the same day that 
a most important thing happened in the lives of Bob 
Hendricks and Molly Brownwell. That day Bob Hen¬ 
dricks walked one end of the station platform alone. The 
east-bound train w'as half an hour late, and while the 
veterans were teasing Watts and the women railing at 
Mrs. McHurdie, Hendricks discovered that it was one 
hundred and seventy-eight steps from one end of the walk 
to the other, and that to go entirely around the building 
made the distance fifty-four steps more. It was almost 
train time before Adrian Brownwell arrived. When the 
dapper little chap came with his bright crimson carnation, 
and his flashing red necktie, and his inveterate gloves and 
cane, Hendricks came only close enough to him to smell 
the perfume on the man’s clothes, and to nod to him. 
But when Hendricks found that the man was going with 
the Culpeppers as far as Cleveland, as he told the entire 
depot platform, “ to report the trip,” Hendricks sat on a 
baggage truck beside the depot, and considered many 
things. As he was sitting there Dolan came up, out of 
breath, and fearful he should be late. 

“ How long will you be gone, Jake? ” asked Hendricks. 

“The matter of a week or ten days, maybe,” answered 
Dolan. 

“Well, Jake,” said Hendricks, looking at Dolan with 
serious eyes, yet rather abstractedly, “ 1 am thinking of 
taking a long trip — to be gone a long time — I don’t 


252 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


know exactly how long. I may not go at all — I haven't 
said anything to the boys in the store or the bank or out 
at the shop about it; it isn’t altogether settled — as yet.’’ 
He paused while a switch engine clanged by and the crowd 
surged out of the depot, and ebbed back again into their 
seats. “Did you deliver my note this morning?” 

“ Yes,” replied Dolan, “ just as you said. That’s what 
made me a little late.” 

“ To the lady herself? ” 

“To the lady herself,” repeated Dolan. 

“All right,” acquiesced Hendricks. “Now, Jake, if I 
give it out that I’m going away on a trip, there’ll be a lot 
of pulling and hauling and fussing around in the bank 
and in the store and at the shop and — every place, and 
then I may not go. So I’ve gone over every concern care¬ 
fully during the past week, and have set down what ought 
to be done in case I’m gone. I didn’t tell my sister even 
— she’s so nervous. And, Jake, I won’t tell any one. 
But if, when you get back from Washington, I’m not here, 
I'm going to leave this key with you. Tell the boys at 
the bank that it will open my tin box, and in the tin box 
they’ll find some instructions about things.” He smiled, 
and Dolan assented. Hendricks uncoiled his legs from 
the truck, and began to get down. “ I won’t mix up with 
the old folks, I guess, Jake. They have their own affairs, 
and I’m tired. I worked all last night,” he added. He 
held out his hand to Dolan and said, “ Well, good-by, 
Jake— have a good time.” 

The elder man had walked away a few steps when Hen¬ 
dricks called him back, and fumbling in his pockets, said : 
“Well, Jake, I certainly am a fool; here—” he pulled 
an envelope marked “ Dolan ” from his inside pocket — 
“Jake, I was in the bank this morning, and I found a 
picture for you. Take it and have a good time. It’s a 
long time till pension day—so long.” 

The Irishman peeped at the bill and grinned as he said, 
“ Them holy pictures from the bank, my boy, have power¬ 
ful healing qualities.” And he marched off with joy in 
his carriage. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


253 


Hendricks then resumed his tramp; up and down the 
long platform he went, stepping on cracks one way, and 
avoiding cracks the next, thinking it all out. He tried 
to remember if he had been unfair to any one; if he had 
left any ragged edges; if he had taken a penny more than 
his honest due. The letter to the county treasurer, return¬ 
ing the money his father had taken, was on top of the pile 
of papers in his tin box at the bank. He had finally con¬ 
cluded, that when everything else was known, that would 
not add much to his disgrace. And then it would be paid, 
and that page with the forged entry would not always be 
in his mind. There were deeds, each witnessed by a differ¬ 
ent notary, so that the town would not gossip before he 
went, transferring all of his real estate to his sister, and 
the stock he had sold to the bank was transferred, and 
the records all in the box; then he went over the prices 
again at which he had disposed of his holdings to the 
bank, and he was sure he had made good bargains in 
every case for the bank. So it was all fair, he argued for 
the thousandth time — he w^as all square with the world. 
He had left a deposit subject to his check of twenty thou¬ 
sand dollars — that ought to do until they could get on 
their feet somewhere; and it was all his, he said to him¬ 
self all his, and no one’s business. 

And when he thought of the other part, the voice of 
Adrian Brownwell saying, “Well, come on, old lady, we 
must be going,” rose in his consciousness. It was not 
so much Brownwell’s words, as his air of patronage and 
possession ; it was cheerful enough, quite gay in fact, 
but Hendricks asked himself a hundred times why the 
man didn’t whistle for her, and clamp a steel collar 
about her neck. He wondered cynically if at the bottom 
of Brown well’s heart, he would not rather have the 
check for twelve thousand dollars which Hendricks had 
left for Colonel Culpepper, to pay off the Brownwell 
note, than to have his wife. For seven years the colonel 
had been cheerfully neglecting it, and now Hendricks 
knew that Adrian was troubling him about the old 
debt. 


254 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


As he rounded the depot for the tenth time he got back 
to their last meeting. There stood General Ward with 
his arm about the girlish waist of Mrs. Ward, the mother 
of seven. There was John Barclay with Jane beside him, 
and they were holding hands like lovers. The Ward 
children were running like rabbits over the broad lawn 
under the elms, and there, talking to the wide, wide 
world, was Adrian Brownwell, propounding the phi¬ 
losophy of the Banner , and quoting from last week’s 
editorials. And there sat Bob and Molly by the flower 
bed that bordered the porch. 

“ I am going to the city to hear Gilmore,” he said. 
That was simple enough, and her sigh had no meaning 
either. It was just a weary little sigh, such as women 
sometimes bring forth when they decide to say something 
else. So she had said: 44 I’ll be all alone next week. I 
think I’ll visit Jane — if she’s in town.” 

Then something throbbed in his brain and made him 
say j — 

44 So you’d like to hear Gilmore, too ? ” 

She coloured and was silent, and the pulse of madness 
that was beating in her made her answer: — 

44 Oh — I can’t — you know the folks are going to Wash¬ 
ington to the encampment, and Adrian is going as far as 
Cleveland with the delegation to write it up.” 

An impulse loosened his tongue, and he asked: — 

44 Why not ? Come on. If you don’t know any one up 
there, go to the Fifth Avenue; it’s all right, and I’ll get 
tickets, and we'll go every night and both matinees. Come 
on! ” he urged. 

She was aflame and could not think. 44 Oh — don’t, Bob, 
don’t — not now. Please don’t,” she begged, in as low a 
tone as she dared to use. 

Adrian was thundering on about the tariff, and the 
general was wrangling with him. The Barclays were 
talking to themselves, and the children were clattering 
about underfoot, and in the trees overhead. Bob’s eyes 
and Molly’s met, and the man shuddered at what he saw 
of pathos and yearning, and he said ? 44 Well, why not? 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


255 


rt's no worse to go than to want to go. What’s wrong 
about it — Molty, do you think — ” 

He did not finish the sentence, for Adrian had ceased 
talking, and Molly, seeing his jealous eyes upon her, rose 
and moved away. But before they left that night she 
found occasion to say, “ I’ve been thinking about it, Bob, 
and maybe I will.” 

In the year that had passed since Hendricks had left 
her sobbing in the chair on the porch of the Culpepper 
home, a current between them had been reestablished, 
and was fed by the chance passing in a store, a smile 
at a reception, a good morning on the street, and the 
current was pulsing through their veins night and day. 
But that fine September morning, as she stood on the 
veranda of her home with a dust-cap on her head, 
cleaning up the litter her parents had made in pack¬ 
ing, she was not ready for what rushed into her soul 
from the letter Dolan left her, as he hurried away to 
overtake the band that was turning from Lincoln Avenue 
into Main Street. She sat in a chair to read it, and for a 
moment after she had read it, she held it open in her lap 
and gazed at the sunlight mottling the blue grass before 
her, through the elm trees. Her lips were parted and her 
eyes wide, and she breathed slowly. The tune the band 
was playing—-McHurdie’s song — sank into her memory 
there that day so that it always brought back the mottled 
sunshine, the flowers blooming along the walk, and the 
song of a robin from a lilac bush near by. She folded the 
letter carefully, and put it inside her dress, and then mov¬ 
ing' mechanically, took it out and read it again: — 

“ My Darling, my Darling : There is no use struggling any more. 
You must come. I will meet you in the city at the morning train, 
the one that leaves the Ridge here at 2.35 a.m. We can go to the 
parks to-morrow and be alone and talk it all out, before the concert — 
and then — oh, Molly, core of my soul, heart of my heart, why should 
we ever come back I Bob.” 

All that she could feel as she sat there motionless was 
a crashing “no.” The thing seemed to drive her mad 
by its insistence — a horrible racking thing that all but 


256 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


shook her, and she chattered at it: “Why not? Why 
not? Why not?” But the “no” kept roaring through 
her mind, and as she heard the servant rattling the break¬ 
fast dishes in the house, the woman shivered out of sight 
and ran to her room. She fell on her knees to pray, 
but all she could pray was, “ O God. O God, O God, 
help me! ” and to that prayer, as she said it, the something 
in her heart kept gibbering, “ Why not ? W hy not ? Why 
not?” From an old box hidden in a closet opening out 
of her mother’s room she took Bob Hendricks’ picture, 
— the faded picture of a boy of twenty, — and holding 
it close to her breast, stared open-lipped into the heart 
of an elm tree-top. The whistle of the train brought 
her back to her real world. She rose and looked at her¬ 
self in the mirror, at the unromantic face with its lines 
showing faintly around her eyes, grown quiet during the 
dozen years that had settled her fluffy hair into sedate 
waves. She smiled at the changes of the years and 
shook her head, and got a grip on her normal conscious¬ 
ness, and after putting away the picture and closing the 
box, she went downstairs to finish her work. 

On the stairs she felt sure of herself, and set about to 
plan for the next day, and then the tumult began, between 
the “ no ” and her soul. In a few minutes as she worked 
the “no” conquered, and she said, “Bob’s crazy.” She 
repeated it many times, and found as she repeated it that 
it was mechanical and that her soul was aching again. So 
the morning wore away ; she gossiped with the servant a 
moment; a neighbour came in on an errand; and she dressed 
to go down town. As she went out of the gate, she won¬ 
dered where she would be that hour the next day, and then 
the struggle began again. Moreover, she bought some new 
gloves — travelling gloves to match her gray dress. 

In the afternoon she and Jane Barclay sat on the wide 
porch of the Barclay home. “ Gilmore’s going to be in 
the city all this week,” said Jane, biting a thread in her 
sewing. 

“ Is he ? ” replied Molly. “ I should so like to hear him. 
It’s so poky up at the house.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


257 


44 Why don't you ?” inquired Jane. 44 Get on the train 
and go on up.” 

“ Co you suppose it would be all right ? ” replied 
Molly. 

44 Why, of course, girl! Aren't you a married woman of 
lawful age ? I would if I wanted to.” 

There was a pause, and Molly replied thoughtfully, 44 1 
have half a notion to — really ! ” 

But as she walked home, she decided not to do it. Peo¬ 
ple from the Ridge might be there, and they wouldn’t un¬ 
derstand, and her finger-tips chilled at the memory of 
Adrian Brownwell’s jealous eyes. So as she ace supper, 
she went over the dresses she had that were available. 
And at bedtime she gave the whole plan up and went up¬ 
stairs humming 44 Marguerite ” as happily as the thrush 
that sang in the lilacs that morning. As she undressed 
the note fell to the floor. When she picked it up, the 
flash of passion came tearing through her heart, and the 
44 no ” crashed in her ears again, and all the day’s struggle 
was for nothing. So she went to bed, resolved not to go. 
But she stared through the window into the night, and of 
a sudden a resolve came to her to go, and have one fair day 
with Hendricks—to talk it all out forever, and then to 
come home, and she rose from her bed and tiptoed through 
the house packing a valise. She left a note in the kitchen 
for the servant, saying that she would be back for dinner 
the next evening, and when she struck a match in the front 
hall to see what time it was, she foi nd that it was only 
one o’clock. For an hour she sat in the chill September 
air on the veranda, thinking it all over—what she would 
say; how they would meet and part; and over and over 
again she told herself that she was doing the sensible thing. 
As the clock struck two she picked up her valise — it was 
heavier than she thought, and it occurred to her that she 
had put in many unnecessary things, and that she had time 
to lighten it. But she stopped a moment only, and then 
walked to the gate and down a side street to the station. 
It was 2.20 when she arrived, and the train was marked 
on the blackboard bj r the ticket window on time. She 


258 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


kept telling herself that it was best to have it out ; that 
she would come right back; but she remembered her 
heavy valise, and again the warning “ no ” roared through 
her soul. She walked up and down the long platform, 
and felt the presence of Bob Hendricks strong and com¬ 
pelling ; she knew he had been there that very day, and 
wondered where he sat. Then she thought perhaps she 
would do better not to go. She looked into the men’s 
waiting room, and it was empty save for one man; his 
back was turned to her, but she recognized Lige Bemis. 
A tremble of guilt racked and weakened her. And with 
a thrili o,s of pain she heard the faint whistle of a train far 
up the valley. The man moved about the room inside. 
Apparently he also heard the far-off whistle. She shrank 
around the corner of the depot. But he caught sight of 
her dress, and slowly sauntered up and down the platform 
until he passed near enough to her to- identify her in the 
faint flicker of the gas. He spoke, and she returned his 
greeting. The train whistled again-—much nearer it 
seemed to her, but still far away, and her soul and the 
“ no ” were grappling in a final contest. Suddenly it came 
over her that she had not bought her ticket. Again the 
train whistled, and far up the tracks she could see a speck 
of light. She hurried into the waiting room to buy the 
ticket. The noise of the train was beginning to sound in 
her ears. She was frightened and nervous, and she fum¬ 
bled with her purse and valise. Nearer and nearer came 
the train, and the “ no ” fairly screamed in her ears, and her 
face was pallid, with the black wrinkles standing out upon it 
in the gaslight. The train was in the railroad yards, and 
the glare of the headlight was in the waiting room. Bemis 
came in and saw her fumbling with her ticket, her pocket 
book, and her valise. 

“You’ll have to hurry, Mrs. Brownwell, this is the 
limited — it only stops a minute. Let me help you.” 

He picked up the valise and followed her from the 
room. The rush of the incoming train shattered her 
nerves. They pulsed in fear of some dreadful thing, and 
in that moment she wondered whether oi not she would 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


25b 


ever see it all again—the depot, the familiar street, the 
great mill looming across the river, and the Barclay home 
half a mile above them. In a second she realized all 
that her going meant, and the 44 no ” screamed at her, and 
the 44 why not ” answered feebly. But she had gone too 
far, she said to herself. The engine was passing her, and 
Bemis was behind her with the heavy valise. She won¬ 
dered what he would say when Bob met her at the train 
in the city. All this flashed across her mind in a second, 
and then she became conscious that the rumbling thing in 
front of her was not the limited but a cattle train, and the 
sickening odour from it made her faint. In the minute 
while it was rushing by at full speed she became rigid, 
and then, taking her valise from the man behind her, 
turned and walked as fast as she could up the hill, and 
when she turned the corner she tried to run. Her ieet 
took her to the Barclay home. She stood trembling in 
terror on the great wide porch and rang the bell. The 
servant admitted the white-faced, shaking woman, and 
she ran to Jane Barclay’s room. 

44 Oh, Jane,” chattered Molly, 44 Jane, for God’s love, 
Jane, hold me-—-hold me tight; don’t let me go. Don’t! ” 
She sank to the floor and put her face in Jane’s lap and 
stuttered : 44 1 — I — have g-g-got to t-t-tell you, Jane. 
I’ve g-g-ot to t-t-t-ell you, J-J-Jane.” And then she fell to 
sobbing. 44 Hold me, don’t let me go out there. When 
it whistles ag-g-gain h-h-hold me t-t-tight.” 

Jane Barclay’s strong kind hands stroked the dishevelled 
hair of the trembling woman. And in time she looked 
up and said quietly, 44 You know — you know, Jane, Bob 
an d X — Bob and I were going to run away!” Molly 
looked at Jane a fearful second with beseeching eyes, and 
then dropped her head and fell to sobbing again, and lay 
with her face on the other woman’s knees. 

When she was quiet Jane said: 44 1 wouldn’t talk about 
it any more, dear — not now.” She stroked the hair and 
patted the face of the woman before her. 44 Shall we go 
to bed now, dear? Come right in with me.” And soon 
Molly rose, and her s£>ent soul rested in peace. But they 


260 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


did not go to bed. The dawn found the two women 
talking it out together — clear from the beginning. 

And when the day came Molly Brown well went to Jane 
Barclay’s desk and wrote. Aud when Bob Hendricks came 
home that night, his sister handed him a letter. It ran :—• 

“My dear Bob: I have thought it all out, dear; it wouldn’t do at 
all. I went to the train, and something, I don’t know what, caught 
me and dragged me over to Jane’s. She was good—oh, so good. 
She knows; but it was better that she should than—the other way. 

“ It will never do, Bob. We can’t go back. The terrible some¬ 
thing that I did stands irrevocably between us. The love that might 
have made both our lives radiant is broken, Bob—forever broken. 
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot ever put it to¬ 
gether again. 1 know it now, and oh Bob, Bob, it makes me sadder 
than the pain of unsatisfied love in my heart. 

“ It just can’t be; nothing ever can make it as it was, and unless it 
could be that way — the boy and girl way, it would be something 
dreadful. We have missed the best in the world, Bob; we cannot 
enjoy the next best together. But apart, each doing his work in life 
as God wills it, we may find the next best, which is more than most 
people know. 

“ I have found during this hour that I can pray again, Bob, aud I 
am asking God always to let me hope for a heaven, into which I can 
bring a few little memories — of the time before you left me. Won’t 
you bring yours there, too, dear? Until then — good-by. 

" “ Molly.” 

The springs that move God’s universe are hidden,—those 
that move the world of material things and those that 
move the world of spiritual things, and make events creep 
out of the past into the future so noiselessly that they seem 
born in the present. It is all a mystery, the half-stated 
equation of life that we call the scheme of things. Only 
this is sure, that however remote, however separated by 
time and space, the tragedy of life has its root in the weak¬ 
ness of men, and of all the heart-breaking phantasms that 
move across the panorama of the day, somewhere deep- 
rooted in our own souls’ weakness is the ineradicable cause. 
Even God’s mercy cannot separate the punishment that 
follows sin, and perhaps it is the greatest mercy of His 
mercy that it cannot do so. For when we leave this world, 
our books are clear. If our souls grow — we pay the price 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


261 


in suffering; if they shrivel, we go into the next world, 
poorer for our pilgrimage. 

So do not pity Molly Brownwell nor Robert Hendricks 
when you learn that as she left the station at Sycamore 
Ridge that night, Lige Bemis went to a gas lamp and read 
the note from Robert Hendricks that in her confusion she 
had dropped upon the floor. Only pity the miserable 
creature whose soul was so dead in him that he could put 
that note away to bide his time. In this wide universe, 
wherein we are growing slowly up to Godhood, only the 
poor leprous soul, whitened with malice and hate, deserves 
the angels’ tears. The rest of us, — weak, failing, frail, to 
whom life deals its sorrows and its tears, its punishments 
and its anguish, — we leave this world nearer to God than 
when we came here, and the journey, though long and hard, 
has been worth the while. 


CHAPTER XIX 


Back in the days when John Barclay had become power¬ 
ful enough to increase the price of his door strips to the 
railroad companies from five dollars to seven and a half, he 
had transferred the business of the factory that made the 
strips from Hendricks' Exchange National to the new Mer¬ 
chants’ State Bank which Gabriel Carnine was establishing. 
For Carnine and Barclay were more of a mind than were 
Barclay and Hendricks; Carnine was bent on getting rich, 
and he had come to regard Barclay as the most remarkable 
man in the world. Hendricks, on the other hand, knew 
Barclay to the core, and since the quarrel of the seventies, 
while they had maintained business relations, they were 
merely getting along together. There were times when 
Barclay felt uncomfortable, knowing that Hendricks knew 
much about his business, but the more Carnine knew, the 
more praise Barclay had of him; and so, even though Jane 
kept her own account with Hendricks, and though John 
himself kept a personal account with Hendricks, the 
Economy Door Strip Company and the Golden Belt Wheat 
Company did business with Carnine, and Barclay became 
a director of the Merchants’ State Bank, and greatly in¬ 
creased its prestige thereby. And Bob Hendricks sighed 
a sigh of relief, for he knew that he would never become 
John Barclay’s fence and be called upon to dispose of stolen 
goods. So Hendricks went his way with his eyes on a 
level and his jaw squared with the world. And when 
he knew that Jane knew the secret of his soul, about the 
only comfort he had in those black days was the exultation 
in his heart that John — whatever he might know — 
could not turn it into cash at the Exchange National Bank. 

As he walked alone under the stars that first night after 
Molly Brownwell’s note came to him, he saw his life as it 

262 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


263 


was, with things squarely in their relations. Of course 
this light did not stay with him always; at times in his 
loneliness the old cloud of wild yearning would come over 
him, and he would rattle the bars of his madhouse until 
he could fight his way out to the clean air of Heaven under 
the stars. And at such times he would elude Dolan, and 
walk far away from the town in fields and meadows and 
woods struggling back to sanity — sometimes through a 
long night. But as the years passed, this truth came to 
be a part of his consciousness— that in some measure the 
thing we call custom, or law, or civilization, or society, 
with all its faults, is the best that man, endowed as he is 
to-day, can establish, and that the highest service one can 
pay to man or to God is found in conforming to the social 
compact, at whatever cost of physical pain, or mental 
anguish, if the conformation does not require a moral 
breach. That was the faith he lived by, that by service 
to his fellows and by sacrifice to whatever was worthy in 
the social compact, he would find a growth of soul that 
would pay him, either here or hereafter. So he lent 
money, and sold light, and traded in merchandise, and did 
a man’s work in politics playing each game according 
to the rules. 

But whatever came to him, whatever of honour or of 
influence, or of public respect, in his own heart there was the 
cloud — he knew that he was a forger, and that once he 
had offered to throw everything he had aside and take in 
return— But he was not candid enough even in his own 
heart to finish the indictment. It made him flush with 
shame, and perhaps that was why on his face there was 
often a curious self-deprecating smile — not of modesty, 
not of charity, but the smile of the man who is looking 
at a passing show and knows that it is not real. As he 
went into his forties, and the flux of his life hardened, he 
became a man of reserves — a kind, quiet, strong man, 
charitable to a fault for the weaknesses of others, but a 
man who rarely reflected his impulses, a listener in conver¬ 
sation, a dreamer amid the tumult of business, whose sue* 
cess lay in his industry and caution, and who drew men to 


264 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


him not by what he promised, but by the faith we chattels 
ing daws have in the man who looks on and smiles while 
we prattle. 

His lank bones began to take on flesh, and his face 
rounded at the corners, and the eagerness of youth passed 
Horn him. He always looked more of a man than John 
Barclay. For Barclay was a man of enthusiasms, who 
occasionally liked to mouth a hard jaw-breaking “ damn,” 
and who followed his instincts with womanly faith in 
them — so that he became known as a man of impulse. 
But Hendricks’ power was in repression, and in Sycamore 
Ridge they used to say that the only reason why Bob 
Hendricks grew a mustache was to chew it when people 
expected him to talk. It wasn’t much of a mustache — 
a little blond fuzz about as heavy as his yellow eyebrows 
over his big inquiring blue eyes, and lie once told Dolan 
that he kept it for a danger signal. When he found him¬ 
self pulling at it, he knew he was nervous and should get 
out into the open. They tell a story in the Ridge to the 
effect that Hendricks started to run to a fire, and caught 
himself pulling at his mustache, and turned around and 
went out to the power-house instead. 

It was the only anecdote ever told of Hendricks after 
he was forty — for he was not a man about whom anec¬ 
dotes would hang well, though the town is full of them 
about John Barclay. So Hendricks lived a strong reti¬ 
cent man, who succeeded in business though he was hon¬ 
est, and who won in politics by choosing his enemies from 
the kind of noisy men who make many mistakes, and let 
every one know it. The time came when he did not 
avoid Molly Brownwell; she felt that he was not afraid 
to see her in any circumstances, and that made her happy. 
Sometimes she went to him in behalf of one of her father’s 
charges, — some poor devil who could not pay his note at 
the bank and keep the children in school, or some clerk 
or workman at the power house who had been discharged. 
At such times they talked the matter in hand over frankly, 
and it ended by the man giving way to the woman, or 
showing her simply that she was wrong* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


265 


Only once in nearly a score of years did a personal 
word pass between them. She had come to him for his 
signature to a petition for a pardon for a man whose 
family suffered while he was in the penitentiary. Hen¬ 
dricks signed the paper and handed it back to her, and 
his blue eyes were fixed impersonally upon her, and he 
smiled his curious, self-deprecatory smile and sighed, 
“As we forgive our debtors.” Then he reached for a 
paper in his desk and seemed oblivious to her presence. 
No one else was near them, and the woman hesitated a 
moment before turning to go and repeated, “Yes, Bob — 
as we forgive our debtors.” She tried to show him the 
radiance in her soul, but he did not look up and she went 
away. When she had gone, he pushed aside his work 
and sat for a moment looking into the street; he began 
biting his mustache, and rose, and went out of the b?mk 
and found some other work. 

That night as Hendricks and Dolan walked over the 
town together, Dolan said : “ Did you ever know, Rob¬ 
ert ” — that was as near familiarity as the elder man 
came with Hendricks — “that Mart Culpepper owed his 
son-in-law a lot of money ? ” 

“Well,” returned Hendricks, “he borrowed a lot fifteen 
years ago or such a matter ; why ? ” 

“Well,” answered Dolan, “I served papers on Mart to¬ 
day in a suit for — I dunno, a lot of money —• as I remem¬ 
ber it about fifteen thousand dollars. That seems like a 
good deal.” 

Hendricks grunted, and they walked on in silence. 
Hendricks knew from BrownwelTs overdraft that things 
were not going well with him, and he believed that 
matters must have reached a painful crisis in the Cul¬ 
pepper family if Brownwell had brought suit against the 
colonel. 

The next morning Colonel Martin Culpepper came into 
the bank. He had grown into a large gray man—with gray 
hair, gray mustaches of undiminished size, and chin whis¬ 
kers grayed and broadened with the years. His fine black 
eves were iust beginning to lose their lustre, and the spring 


266 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


was going out of his stride. As he came into the bank, 
Hendricks noticed that the colonel seemed to shuffle just 
a little. He put out his fat hand, and said : — 

44 Robert, will you come into the back room with me a 
moment? It isn’t business — I just want to talk with 
you.” He smiled apologetically and added, “Just 
troubles, Robert — just an old man wants to talk to some 
one, in point of fact.” 

Hendricks followed the colonel into the directors’ room, 
and without ceremony the colonel sank heavily into a fat 
leather chair, facing the window, and Hendricks sat down 
facing the colonel. The colonel looked at the floor and 
fumbled his triangular watch-charm a moment, and cleared 
his throat, as he spoke, “I don't know just how to begin 
— to get at it — to proceed, as I may say, Robert.” Hen¬ 
dricks did not reply, and the colonel went on, “ I just 
wanted to talk to some one, that’s all — to talk to you — 
just to you, sir, to be exact.” 

Hendricks looked kindly at the colonel, whose averted 
eyes made the younger man feel uncomfortable. Then he 
said gently, 44 Well, Colonel, don’t be backward abaub say¬ 
ing what you want to to me.” It was a long speech for 
Hendricks, and he felt it, and then qualified it with, 
44 But, of course, I don’t want to urge you.” 

The colonel’s face showed a flush of courage to Hen¬ 
dricks, but the courage passed, and there was a silence, 
and then a little twitch under his eyes told Hendricks 
that the colonel was contemplating a flank attack as he 
spoke, 44 Robert, may 1 ask you in confidence if Adrian 
Brownwell is hard up ? ” 

Hendricks believed the truth would bring 1 matters to 

O 

a head, and he answered, 44 Well, I shouldn’t wonder, 
Colonel.” 

“Very hard up?” pressed the colonel. 

Hendricks remembered Brownwell’s overdraft and half 
a dozen past due notes to cover other overdrafts and an¬ 
swered, 44 Well, Colonel, not desperate, but you know the 
Index has been getting the best of the Banner for two or 
three years.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


267 


There was a pause, and then the colonel blurted out 
“Well, Bob, he’s sued me.” 

“ I knew that, Colonel,” returned Hendricks, anxious 
to press the matter to its core. “Jake told me yester¬ 
day.” 

“ I was going to pay him; lie’s spoken about it several 
times—dunned me, sir, in point of fact, off and on for 
several years. But he knew I was good for it. And now 
the little coward runs off up to Chicago to attend the con¬ 
vention and sues me while lie’s gone. That’s what 1 hate.” 
Hendricks could see that the object of the colonel’s visit 
was still on his mind, and so he left the way open for the 
colonel to talk. “ You know how Mrs. Culpepper feels 
and how Molly feels —- disgraced, sir, humiliated, shamed, 
to be exact, sir, in front of the whole town. What would 
you do, Robert? What can a man do in a time like this 
— I ask you, what can he do ? ” 

“Well, I’d pay him, Colonel, if I were you,” ventured 
the younger man. 

The colonel straightened up and glared at Hendricks 
and exclaimed: “ Bob Hendricks, do you think, sir, that 
Martin Culpepper would rest for a minute, while he had 
a dollar to his name, or a rag on his back, under the im¬ 
putation of not paying a debt like that ? It is paid, sir, 
-— settled in full this morning, sir. But what am I going 
to do about him, sir — the contemptible scamp who pub¬ 
licly sued his own wife’s father? That’s what I came to 
you for, Robert. What am I going to do?” 

“It’ll be forgotten in a week, Colonel—I wouldn’t 
worry about it,” answered Hendricks. “ We all have 
those little unpleasantnesses.” 

The colonel was 4 silent for a time, and then he said : 
“Bob—” turning his eyes to meet Hendricks’ for the first 
time during their meeting — “ that scoundrel said to me 
yesterday morning before leaving, 4 If I hadn’t the mis¬ 
fortune of being your son-in-law, you Avouldn’t have the 
honour of owing me this money.’ Then he sneered at me 
—you know the supercilious way he has, the damn miser¬ 
able hound-pup way he has of grinning at you, — and says, 


268 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


‘I regarded it as a loan, even though you seemed to re¬ 
gard it as a bargain/ And he whirled and left me.” The 
colonel’s voice broke as he added: “ In God’s name, Bob, 
tell me — did I sell Molly? You know — you can tell 
me.” 

The colonel was on his feet, standing before Hendricks, 
with his hands stretched toward the younger man. Hen¬ 
dricks did not reply at once, and the colonel broke forth: 
“ Bob Hendricks, why did you and my little girl quarrel ? 
Did she break it or did you? Did I sell her, Bob, did I 
sell my little girl?” He slipped back into the chair and 
for a moment hid his face, and shook with a great sob, 
then pulled himself together, and said, “I know I’m a 
foolish old man, Bob, only I feel a good deal depends on 
knowing the truth — a good deal of my attitude toward 
him.” 

Hendricks looked at the colonel for an abstracted mo¬ 
ment, and then said: “ Colonel, Adrian Brownwell is hard 
up—very hard up, and you don’t know how he is suffer¬ 
ing with chagrin at being beaten by the Index. He is 
quick-tempered—just as you are, Colonel.” He paused a 
moment and took the colonel by the hand, — a fat, pink 
hand, without much iron in it,—and brought him to his 
feet. “ And about that other matter,” he added, as he 
put his arm about the colonel, “you didn’t sell her. I 
know that; I give you my word on that. It was fifteen 
years ago-—maybe longer — since Molly and I were — 
since we went together as boy and girl. That’s a long 
time ago, Colonel, a long time ago, and I’ve managed to 
forget just why we — why we didn’t make a go of it.” 
He smiled kindly at the colonel as he spoke—a smile that 
the colonel had not seen in Hendricks’ face in many years, 
Then the mask fell on his face, and the colonel saw it fall 
— the mask of the man over the face of the boy. A 
puzzled, bewildered look crept into the gray, fat face, and 
Hendricks could see that the doubt was still in the colo¬ 
nel’s heart. The younger man pressed the colonel’s 
hand, and the two moved toward the door. Suddenly 
tears flushed into the dimmed eyes of the colonel, and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


269 


he cried, through a smile, 44 Bob Hendricks, I believe in 
my soul you’re a liar—a damn liar, sir, but, boy, you’re 
a thoroughbred — God bless you, you’re a thoroughbred.” 
And be turned and shuffled from the room and out of the 
bank. 

When Colonel Martin Culpepper left Robert Hendricks 
at the door of the directors’ room of the Exchange Na¬ 
tional Bank, the colonel was persuaded in bis heart that 
bis daughter bad married Adrian Brownwell to please her 
parents, and the colonel realized that day that her parents 
were pleased with Brownwell as a suitor for their daughter, 
because in time of need be bad come to their rescue with 
money, and incidentally because he was of their own blood 
and caste — a Southern gentleman of family. The colonel 
vent to the offices of the Culpepper Mortgage and Loan 
Company and went over his bank-book again. The check 
that he drew would take all but three hundred and forty- 
five dollars out of the accounts of his company, and not a 
dollar of it was his. The Culpepper Mortgage Company 
was lending other people’s money. It had been lending 
money on farm mortgages for ten years. Pay-day on 
many mortgages was coming due, and of the fifteen thou¬ 
sand dollars he checked out to pay Adrian Brownwell’s 
debt, thirteen thousand dollars was money that belonged 
to the Eastern creditors of the company — men and women 
who had sent their money to the company for it to lend ; 
and the money checked out represented money paid back 
by the farmers for the release of their mortgages. Some 
of the money was interest paid by farmers on their 
mortgages, some of it was partial payments — but none 
of it was Colonel Culpepper’s money. 

44 Molly,” said the colonel, as his daughter came into 
the office, 44 I’ve given a check for that — that money, you 
know, to Adrian — paid it in full, my dear. But — ” the 
colonel fumbled with his pencil a moment and added, 
44 I’m a trifle shy — a few thousand in point of fact, and I 
just thought I’d ask — would you borrow it of Bob, if you 
were me ? ” 

He looked at her closely, and she coloured and shook her 


270 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


head vehemently as she replied: “Oh, no, father — no* 
can’t you get it somewhere else? Not from Bob — for 
that! I mean — oh — I’d much rather not.” 

The colonel looked at his daughter a moment and drew 
a deep breath, and sighed, and smiled across his sigh, and 
took her hand and put it around his neck and kissed it, 
and when she was close to him he put his arm about her, 
and their eyes met for a fleeting instant, and they did not 
speak. But in a moment from across his desk the daughter 
spoke, “ Why don’t you go to John or Carnine, father ? ” 

“ Well, Gabe-—you know Gabe. I’m borrowed clear to 
the limit there, now. And John —you know John, Molly 
— and the muss, the disagreeable muss, — the row, in 
point of fact, we had over that last seventy-five dollars 
settling up the College Heights business — you remember ? 
Well, I just can’t go to John. But,” he added cheerfully, 
“ I can get it elsewhere, my dear — I have other resources, 
other resources, my dear.” And the colonel smiled so 
gayly that he deceived even his daughter, and she wexit 
home as happy as a woman with eyelids as red as hers 
were that day might reasonably expect to be. 

As for the colonel, he sat figuring for an hour upon a 
sheet of white paper. His figures indicated that by put¬ 
ting all of his property except his home into the market, 
and reserving all of his commissions on loans that would, 
fall due during the three years coming, he could pay back 
the money he had taken, little by little, and be square 
with the company’s creditors in three years — or four at 
the most. So he let the check stand, and did not try to 
borrow money of the banks to make it good, but trusted 
to to-morrow’s receipts to pay yesterday’s debts of the 
company. Knowing that several mortgages of more than 
three thousand each would fall due in a few weeks, and 
that the men carrying them expected to pay them, the 
colonel wrote dilatory letters to the Eastern creditors whose 
money he had taken, explaining that there was some delay 
in the payment of the notes, and that the matter would 
be straightened out in a few weeks. When the money 
came in from the mortgages falling due the next month, 

\ 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


271 


he paid those already due, and delayed the payment of 
Peter until Paul paid up. It was a miserable business, 
and Colonel Culpepper knew that he was a thief. The 
knowledge branded him as one, and bent his eyes to the 
ground, and wrenched his proud neck so that his head hung 
loosely upon it. Always when he spoke in public, or went 
among his poor on errands of mercy, at his elbow stood 
the accusing spectre, and choked his voice, and unnerved 
his hand. And trouble came upon the Culpeppers, and 
the colonel’s clothes, which had always been immaculate, 
grew shabby. As that year and the next passed and 
mortgages began falling due, not only in the colonel’s com¬ 
pany but all over the county, all over the state, all over 
the Missouri Valley, men found they could not pay. The 
cycle of business depression moved across the world, as 
those things come and go through the centuries. More¬ 
over, General Ward was riding on the crest of a wave of 
unrest which expressed in terms of politics what the 
people felt in their homes. Debts were falling due; crops 
brought small returns; capital was frightened; men in 
the mills lost their work; men on the farms burned their 
corn; and Colonel Martin Culpepper sank deeper and 
deeper into the mire. 

Those years of the panic of the early nineties pressed 
all the youth out of his step, dimmed the lustre of his 
eyes, and slowly broke his heart. His keenest anguish 
was not for his own suffering, but because his poor, the 
people at the Mission, came trooping to him for help, and 
he had to turn so many away. The whole town knew 
that he was in trouble, though no one knew or even sus¬ 
pected just what it was. For the people had their own 
troubles in those days, and the town and the county and 
the state and the whole world grew shabby. 

One day in the summer of ’93, Colonel Culpepper was 
sitting in his office reading a letter from Vermont demand¬ 
ing a long-deferred interest payment on a mortgage. 
There were three hundred dollars due, and the colonel had 
but half that amount, and was going to send what he had. 
Jake Dolan came into the office and saw the colonel 


272 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


sitting with the letter crumpled in his hands, and with 
worry in the dull old eyes. 

“Come in, Jake, come in,” cried the colonel, a little 
huskily. “ What’s the trouble, comrade—what’s wrong ? ” 

But let Dolan tell it to Hendricks three days later, as 
the two are sitting at night on the stone bridge across the 
Sycamore built by John Barclay to commemorate the 
battle of Sycamore Ridge. “‘ Well, Mart,’ says I, ‘ I’m in 
vicarious trouble,’ says I. ‘ It’s along of my orphan asy¬ 
lum,’ says I. ‘What orphan asylum?’ says he. ‘Well, 
it’s this way, Mart,’ says I. ‘ You know they found Trixie 
Lee guilty this afternoon in the justice court, don’t you ? * 
Mart sighs and says, ‘Poor Trixie, I supposed they would 
sooner or later, poor girl — poor girl. An’ old Cap Lee 
of the Red Legs was her father ; did you know that, Jake ?* 
he asks. ‘Yes, Mart,’ says I, ‘and Lady Lee before her. 
She comes by it honestly.’ Mart sat drumming with his 
fingers on the table, looking back into the years. ‘Poor 
Jim,’ he says, ‘Jim was a brave soldier — a brave, big- 
hearted, generous soldier — he nursed me all that first 
night at Wilson’s Creek when I was wounded. Poor Jim.* 
‘Yes,’ says I, ‘and Trixie has named her boy for him — 
Jim Lord Lee Young; that was her husband’s name — 
Young,’ says I. ‘And it’s along of the boy that I’m hero 
for. The nicest bright-eyed little chap you ever saw ; and 
he seems to know that something is wrong, and just 
clings to his mother and cries — seven years old, or maybe 
eight — and begs me not to put his mother in jail. And,* 
says I to Mart, ‘ Mart, I just can’t do it. The sheriff he’s 
run, and so lias the deputy; they can’t stand the boy cry¬ 
ing, and damn it to hell, Mart, I can’t, either; so I just 
left ’em in the office and locked the door and come around 
to see you. I’d ’a’ gone to see Bob, only lie’s out of town 
this week,’ I says. ‘I can throw up the job, Mart—• 
though I’d have to go on the county ; but Mart, they ain’t 
a soul for the boy to go to; and it ain’t right to put him 
in jail with the scum that’s in there.’ ” 

“Tough — wasn’t it?” said Hendricks. “What did 
you do? Why didn’t you go to Carnine or Barclay?” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


273 


“ That’s just what I’m a-comin’ to, — the Priest or the 
Levite ? ” said Jake. “Well, Mart said, 4 Where’re the 
men they caught — won’t they help?’ and I says, 4 They 
paid their fine and skipped.’ 4 Fine ?’asks Mart, Mine? 
I thought you said it was jail sentence.’ 4 Well,’ says I, 
4 it amounts to the same thing ; she can’t pay her fine, and 
that damn reform judge, wanting to make a record as a 
Spartan, has committed her to jail till it is paid ! ’ 4 So 

they go free, and she goes to jail, because she is poor,’ says 
Mart. -* That’s what your reform means,’ says I, 4 or I let 
her and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,’ says 
I, 4 the screams of that little boy at the disgrace of it and 
the terror of the jail — man — I can’t stand it ! ’ 4 How 

much is it ? ’ sighs Mart. 4 An even hundred fine and seven¬ 
teen dollars and fifty cents costs,’ says I. Mart’s eyes 
was leaking, and he gets up and goes to the vault, and 
comes back with the cash and says, blubbering like a calf : 
4 Here, Jake Dolan, you old scoundrel, take this. I’ll pass 
a paper and get it to-morrow — now get out of here.’ And 
he handed me the money all cried over where he’d been 
slow counting it out, and said when he’d got hold of his 
wobbly jaw: 4 Don’t you tell her where you got it — I 
don’t want her around here. Ill see her to-morrow when 
I’m down that way and talk to her for old Cap Lee — ’ 
And then he laughs as he stands in the door and says: 
4 Well, Jim,’ and he points up, 4 your bread cast upon the 
waters was a long time a-coming — but here she is;’ and 
he says, 4 Do you suppose the old villain knows?’ And 
I turned and hunted up the justice and went around to 
the office, and told Trixie to 4 go sin no more,’ and she 
laughs and says, ‘Well, hardly ever!’ and I kissed the 
kid, and he fought my whiskers, and we all live happy 
ever after.” 

But the colonel, after Dolan left the office, went into 
the darkening room, and spread out the harsh letter from 
the Vermont banker demanding money long past due, and 
read and reread it and took up his burden, and got into 
the weary treadmill of his life. It rained the next day, 
and he did not go out with his subscription paper ; he had 


274 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


learned that people subscribe better on bright days ; and 
as Hendricks and Barclay were both out of town, he wrote 
a dilatory letter to the Vermont people — the fifth he had 
written about that particular transaction — and waited 
another rainy day and still another before starting out with 
his paper. But the event was past; the cry of the child 
was not in the people’s ears; they knew that the colonel 
had put up the money ; so it was not until Hendricks came 
back and heard the story from Dolan that the colonel was 
repaid. Then because he actually had the money — at 
least half of it due on that particular debt, which was one 
of scores of its kind—the colonel delayed another day and 
another, and while he was musing the fire burned. And 
events started in Vermont which greatly changed the 
course of this story. 

“I wonder,” he has written in that portion of the Me* 
Hurdie Biography devoted to “The Press of the Years,” 
“why, as we go farther and farther into life, invariably it 
grows dingier and dingier. The ‘large white plumes’ 
that dance before the eyes of youth soil, and are bedraggled. 
And out of the inexplicable tangle of the mesh of life 
come dark threads from God knows where and colour the 
woof of it gray and dreary. Ah for the days of the large 
white plumes—for the days when life’s woof was bright 1 ” 


CHAPTER XX 


If the reader of this tale should feel drawn to visit 
Sycamore Ridge, he will find a number of interesting 
things there, and the trip may be made by the transconti¬ 
nental traveller with the loss of but half a dozen hours 
from his journey. The Golden Belt Railroad, fifteen years 
ago, used to print a guide-book called “ California and 
Back,” in which were set down the places of interest to 
the traveller. In that book Sycamore Ridge was described 
thus: — 

“ Sycamore Ridge, pop. 22,345, census 1890; large water-power, main 
industry milling; also manufacturing; five wholesale bouses. Seat 
W ard University, 1300 students ; also Garrison County High School, 
also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the 
Daily Banner and the Index; fifty miles of paved streets; largest 
stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of Sycamore 
Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts Mcllurdie, famous 
as writer of war-songs, best known of which is — M etc., etc. 

But excepting Watts, who may be gone before you get 
there, — for he is an old man now, and is alone and prob¬ 
ably does not always have the best of care, — the things 
above annotated will not interest the traveller. At the 
Thayer House they will tell you that three things in the 
town give it distinction: the Barclay home, a rambling gray 
brick structure which the natives call Barclay Castle, with 
a great sycamore tree held together by iron bands on the 
terraced lawn before the house — that is number one; the 
second thing they will advise the traveller to see is Mary 
Barclay Park, ten acres of transplanted elm trees, most 
tastefully laid out, between Main Street and the Barclay 
home; and the third thing that will be pointed out to the 
traveller is the Schnitzler fountain, in the cemetery gate¬ 
way, done by St. Gaudens; it represents a soldier pouring 

275 


276 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


water from liis canteen into his hand, as he bathes the 
brow of a dying comrade. 

These things, of course,— the house, the park, and the 
fountain,—represent John Barclay and his money. The 
town is proud of them, but the reader is advised not to 
expect too much of them. One of the two things really 
worth seeing at the Ridge is the view over the wheat 
fields of the Sycamore Valley from the veranda of the 
Culpepper home on the hill. There one may see the 
great fields lying in three townships whereon John Bar¬ 
clay founded his fortune. The second thing worth seeing 
may be found in the hallway of the public library build¬ 
ing, just at the turn of the marble stairway, where the 
morning light strikes it. Take the night train out of 
Chicago and get to the Ridge in the morning, to get the 
light on that picture. 

It is a portrait of John Barclay, done when he was forty 
years old and painted by a Russian during the summer 
when the Barclays were called home from Europe before 
their journey was half completed, to straighten out an 
obstreperous congressman, one Tom Wharton by name, who 
was threatening to put wheat and flour on the free list in 
a tariff bill, unless — but that is immaterial, except that 
Wharton was on Barclay’s mind more or less while the 
painter was at work, and the portrait reflects what Barclay 
thought of a number of things. It shows a small gray- 
clad man, with a pearl pin in a black tie, sitting rather on 
the edge of his chair, leaning forward, so that the head is 
thrown into the light. The eyes are well opened, and the 
jaw comes out, a hard mean jaw; but the work of the 
artist, the real work that reveals the soul of the sitter, is 
shown in three features, if we except the pugnacious 
shoulders. In the face are two of these features : the 
mouth, a hard, coarse, furtive mouth, — the mouth of the 
liar who is not polished, — the peasant liar who has been 
caught and has brazened it out; the mouth and the fore¬ 
head, full almost to bulging, so clean and white and naked 
that it seems shameful to expose it, a poet’s forehead, 
noble and full of dreams, broad over the eyes, and as deli- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


277 


cately modelled at tlie temples as a woman’s where the curly 
brown hair is brushed away from it. But the wonderful 
feature about the portrait is the right hand. The artist 
obviously asked Barclay to assume a natural attitude, and 
then seeing him lean forward with his hand stretched out 
in some gesture of impatience, persuaded him to take that 
pose. It is the sort of vital human thing that would 
please Barclay—no sham about it; but he did not real¬ 
ize what the Russian was putting into that hand — a long, 
hard, hairy, hollow, grasping, relentless hand, full in the 
foreground and squarely in the light — a horrible thing 
with artistic fingers, and a thin, greedy palm indicated by 
the deep hump in the back. It reaches out from the pic¬ 
ture, with the light on the flesh tints, with the animal hair 
thick upon it, and with the curved, slender, tapering fin¬ 
gers cramped like a claw; and when one follows up the 
arm to the crouching body, the furtive mouth, the bold, 
shrewd eyes, and then sees that forehead full of visions, 
one sees in it more than John Barclay of Sycamore Ridge, 
more than America, more than Europe. It is the menace 
of civilization-—the danger to the race from the domina¬ 
tion of sheer intellect without moral restraint. 

General Ward, who was on the committee that received 
the picture fifteen years after it was painted, stood looking 
at it the morning it was hung there on the turn of the 
stairs. As the light fell mercilessly upon it, the general, 
white-haired, white-necktied, clean-shaven, and lean-faced, 
gazed at the portrait for a long time, and then said to his 
son Neal who stood beside him, “And Samson wist not 
that the Lord had departed from him.” 

It will pay one to stop a day in Sycamore Ridge to see 
that picture— though he does not know John Barclay, 
and only understands the era that made him, and gave him 
that refined, savage, cunning, grasping hand. 

Barclay stopped a week in Washington on his return from 
Europe the year that picture was painted, made a draft for 
fifty thousand dollars on the National Provisions Company 
to cover “ legal expenses,” and came straight home to Syca¬ 
more Ridge. He was tired of cities, he told Colonel Cul« 


278 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


pepper, who met Barclay at the post-office the morning he 
returned, with his arms full of newspapers. “ I want to 
hear the old mill, Colonel,” said Barclay, “to smell the 
grease down in the guts of her, and to get my hair full 
of flour again.” When he had gorged himself for two 
days, he wired Bemis to come to the Ridge, and Barclay 
and Bemis sat on the dam one evening until late bedtime, 
considering many things. As they talked, Barclay found 
that a plan for the reorganization of the Provisions Com¬ 
pany was growing in his mind, and he talked it out as 
it grew. 

“ Lige,” he said, as he leaned with his elbows on a rock 
behind him, “the trouble with the company as it now 
stands is that it’s too palpable. There’s too much to levy 
on — too much in sight; too much physical property. 
How would it do to sell all these mills and elevators, and 
use the company as a kind of a cream skimmer — a profit 
shop — to market the products of the mills?” He paused 
a moment, and Bemis, who knew he was not expected to 
reply, flipped pebbles into the stream. Barclay changed 
his position slightly and began to pick stones out of the 
crevices, and throw the stones into the water. “ That’s 
the thing to do — go ahead and sell every dollar’s worth 
of assets the company’s got — I’ll take the mill here. I 
couldn’t get along without that. Then we’ll buy the 
products of the mills at cost of the millers, and let them 
get their profits back as individual holders of our stock. 
Our company will handle the Door Strip — buy it and sell 
it — and if any long-nosed reformer gets to snooping 
around the mills, he’ll find they are making only a living 
profit; and as for us — any state grain commissioner or 
board of commissioners who wanted to examine us could 
do so, and what’d lie find ? Simply that we’re buying our 
products at cost of the millers and. selling at the market 
price — sometimes at a loss, sometimes at a profit; and 
what if we do handle all the grain and grain products in 
the United States? They can’t show that we are hurt¬ 
ing anything. I tell you there’s getting to be too much 
snooping now in the state and federal governments. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


279 


Have you got any fellow in your office who can fix up a 
charter that will let us buy and sell grain, and also sell 
the Barclay Economy Strip ? ” 

Bends nodded. 

“ Then, damn ’em, let ’em go on with their commis¬ 
sioners and boards and legislative committees ; they can’t 
catch us. There’s no law against the railroads that ship 
our stuff buying the Economy Door Strip, is there ? You 
bet there isn’t. And we’re entitled to a good round in¬ 
ventor’s profit, ain’t we ? You bet we are. You go ahead 
and get up that reorganization, and I’ll put it through. 
Say, Lige — ” Barclay chuckled as a recollection flashed 
across his mind—“you know I’ve made some of our 
Northwest senators promise to make you a federal judge. 
That’s one of the things I did last week ; I thought 
maybe sometime we’d need a federal judge as one of the 
•—what do you call it — the hereditaments thereunto ap¬ 
pertaining of the company.” Bemis opened his eyes in 
astonishment, and Barclay grunted in disgust as he went 
on : “ Of course we can’t get you appointed from this 
state — that’s clear — but they think we can work it 
through in the City — as soon as there is a vacancy — or 
make a new district. How would you like that ? Judge 
Bemis — say, that sounds all right, doesn’t it ? ” 

Barclay rose and stretched his legs and arms. “Well, 
I must be going — Mrs. Barclay and my mother want to 
hear the new organ over in the Congregational Church. 
It’s a daisy — Colonel Culpepper, amongst hands, skir¬ 
mished up three thousand. They let me pick it out, and 
I had to put up another thousand m} r self to get the kind 
I wanted. Are you well taken care of at the hotel ? ” 
When Bemis explained that he had the bridal chamber, 
the two men clambered up the bank of the stream, crossed 
the bridge, and at his gate Barclay said: “Now, I’ll sleep 
on this to-night, — this reorganization, — and then I’ll 
write you a letter to-morrow, covering all that I’ve said, 
and you can fix up a tentative charter and fire it down — 
and say, Lige, figure out what a modest profit on all the 
grain and grain produce business of the country would 


<280 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


be — say about two and a half per cent, and make the 
capitalization of the reorganization lit that. We’ll get 
the real profits out of the Door Strip, and can fix that up 
in the books. We’ll show the reformers a trick or two.” 

It was a warm night, and when the organ recital was 
over, John and Jane Barclay, after the custom of the 
town, sat on a terrace in front of the house talking of 
the day’s events. Music always made John babble. 

“Jane,” he asked suddenly, “Jane — when does a man 
begin to grow old? Here I am past forty. I used to 
think when a man was forty he was middle-aged ; every 
five years I have advanced my idea of what an old man 
was; when I was fifteen, I thought a man was getting 
along when he was thirty. When I was twenty-five, I 
regarded forty as the beginning of the end ; when I was 
thirty, I put the limit of activity at forty-five; five years 
ago I moved it up to fifty; and to-day I have jumped it to 
sixty. It seems to me, Jane, that I’m as much of a boy 
as ever; all this talk about my being a man puzzles me. 
What’s this Provisions Company but a game? And I’m 
going to play another game ; I’m going to get grain and 
grain produce organized, and then I’m going to tackle 
meat. In ten years I’ll have the packing-houses where I 
have the mills; but it’s just play — and it’s a lot of fun.” 

He was silent a moment. Jane did not disturb his rev¬ 
eries. She understood, without exactly putting her feel¬ 
ing into language, that she was being talked at, not talked 
to. 

“Say, Jane,” he exclaimed, “ wasn’t that ‘ Marche Triom- 
pliante to-night great ? ” He hummed a bar from the mo¬ 
tif, “That’s it — my — ” he cried, hitting his chair arm 
with his fist, “but that’s a big thing — almost good enough 
for Wagner to have done ; big and insistent and strong. 
I’m getting to like music with go to it—with bang and 
brass. Wagner does it ; honest, Jane, when I hear his 
trombones coming into a theme, I get ideas enough to 
give the whole force in the office nervous prostration for a 
month. To-night Avhen that thing was swelling up like a 
great tidal wave of music rolling in, I worked out a big 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


28 i 


idea-, I’m going to sell all the mills and factories back to 
the millers for our stock, and when I own every dollar of 
our stock, I’m going to doable the price of it to them 
and sell it back to them ; and if they haggle about it, I’ll 
build a new mill across the track from every man-jack 
who tries to give me any funny business—I’ll show ’em. 
That reorganization ought to clean up millions for us in 
the next year. What a lot of fun it all is ! I used to 


think old Jay. Gould was some pumpkins; but if we get 
this reorganization through, I’ll go down there and buy 
the Gould outfit and sell ’em for old iron.” 

The current of his thoughts struck under language, 
as a prairie stream sometimes hides from its surface bed. 
After a time Jane said: “Grandma Barclay thought the 
4 Marche Funebre ’ was the best thing the man did. I 
heard the Wards speaking of it in the vestibule: and 
Molly, who held my hand through it, nearly squeezed it 
off — poor girl; but she looks real well these days.” 
Jane paused a moment and added: “Did you notice the 
colonel ? How worn and haggard he looks — he seems 
broken so. They say he is in trouble. Couldn’t we help 
him ? ” 

Her husband did not reply at once. Finally he recalled 
his wandering wits and answered: “ Oh, I don’t know, 
Jane. He’ll pull through, I guess.” Then he reverted 
to the music, which was still in his head. “ He played 
the Largo well — didn’t he ? That was made for the 
organ. But some way I like the big things. The Largo 
is like running a little twenty-horse-power steam mill, 
and selling to the home grocers. But ‘ The Ride of the 
Valkyries,’ with those screaming discords of brass, and 
those magnificent crashes of harmony — Jane, I’ve got an 
idea — Wagner’s work is the National Provisions Company 
set to music, and I’m the first trombone.” He laughed and 
reached for his wife’s hand and kissed it; then he rose 
and stood before her, admiring her in the starlight, as he 
exclaimed: “ And you are those clarinets, sweet and clear 
and delicious, that make a man want to cry for sheer joy. 
Come on, my dear — isn’t it very late ? ” And the little 


282 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


man limped across the grass up the steps and into the 
house. The two stopped a moment while he listened to 
the roar of the water and the rumble of the mill, that 
glowed in the night like a phosphorescent spectre. He 
squeezed her hand and cried out in exultation, 44 It’s great, 
isn’t it — the finest mill on this planet, my dear — do you 
realize that ? ” And then they turned into the house. 

The next morning he kept two stenographers busy; he 
was spinning the web of his reorganization, bringing about 
a condition under which men were compelled to exchange 
their stock in the National Provisions Company for their 
former property. He was a crafty little man, and his ways 
were sometimes devious, even though to outward view his 
advertised and proclaimed methods were those of a pirate. 
So when he had dictated a day’s work to two girls, he 
went nosing through the mill, loafing in the engine rooms, 
looking at the water wheel, or running about rafters in the 
fifth floor like a great gray rat. As he went he hummed 
little tunes under his breath or whistled between his teeth, 
with his lips apart. After luncheon he unlocked a row¬ 
boat, and took a cane pole and rowed himself a mile up 
the mill-pond, and brought home three good-sized bass. 
Thus did he spend his idle moments around the Ridge. 
That night he thumped his piano and longed for a pipe 
organ. The things he tried to play were noisy, and his 
mother, sitting in the gloaming near him, sighed and said : 
“John, play some of the old pieces — the quieter ones; 
play 4 The Long and Weary Day’ and some of the old 
songs. Have you forgotten the ‘Bohemian Girl’ and 
those Schubert songs ? ” 

His fingers felt their way back to his boyhood, and 
when he ceased playing, he stood by his mother a moment, 
and patted her cheeks as he hummed in German the first 
two lines of the 44 Lorelei,” and then said, 44 We have 
come a long way since then — eh, mother ? ” She held his 
hand to her cheek and then to her lips, but she did not 
reply. He repeated it, 44 A long, long way from the little 
home of one room here! ” After a pause he added, 
“Would you like to go back?” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


283 


A tear fell on the hand against her cheek. He felt her 
jaw quiver, and then she said, 44 Oh, yes, John — yes, I 
believe I would.” 

He knew she did not care for his wealth, and there were 
many things about his achievements that he felt she might 
misunderstand; her attitude often puzzled him. So he 
sat a moment on her chair arm, and said, 44 Well, mother, 
I have done my best.” It was a question more than a 
protest. 

44 Yes, dear,” she replied, 44 1 know you have — you have 
done your best — your very best. But I think it is in 
your blood.” 

44 What? ” he asked. 

44 Oh, all this,” she answered; 44 all this money-getting. 
I am foolish, John, but some way, I want my little boy 
back — the one who used to sit with me so long ago, and 
play on the guitar and sing 4 Sleeping, I Dream, Love.’ 
I don’t like your new music, John; it’s so like clanging 
cars, and crashing hammers, and the groans of men at toil.” 

44 But this is a new world, mother — a new world that is 
different,” protested the son, impatiently. 

And the mother answered sadly as she looked up at him : 
44 1 know, dear — it is a new world; but the same old God 
moves it; and the same faith in God and love of man 
move men that always have moved them, and always will 
move them; there are as many things to live and die for 
now, as when your father gave up his life, John — just as 
many.” They rocked together in silence —the boy of 
forty and the mother of sixty. Finally she said, 44 John¬ 
nie, play me 4 Ever of Thee I’m fondly Thinking,’ won’t 
you, before you go?” 

He sat with his foot on the soft pedal and played the 
old love song, and as he played his mother wandered over 
hills he had never seen, through fields he had never known, 
and heard a voice in the song he might never hear, even 
in his dreams. When he finished, she stood beside him 
and cried with all the passion her years could summon: 
44 Oh, John — John — it will come out some way — some 
day. It’s in your soul, and God in His own way will 


284 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


bring it out.” He did not understand her then, and it 
was many years before he prayed her prayer. 

The next day he went to the City and plunged into his 
work, and the Ridge and its people and the prayers of his 
mother became to him only as a dream that comes in the 
night and fades in the day. Even the shabby figure of 
Colonel Martin Culpepper, with his market basket on his 
arm, waving a good-by as the Barclay private car pulled 
out of the Sycamore Ridge depot, disappeared from his 
mind, though that pathetic image haunted him for nearly 
a hundred miles as he rode, and he could not shake it off 
until he immersed himself in the roar of the great City. 
He could not know that he had any remote relation with 
the worry in the old man’s eyes. Nor did Martin Cul¬ 
pepper try to shift his load to John. He knew where the 
blame was, and he tried to take it like a man. But in 
reckoning the colonel’s account, may not something be 
charged off to the account of John Barclay, who to save 
himself and accomplish the Larger Good — which meant 
the establishment of his own fortunes — sent Adrian 
Brownwell in those days in the seventies with the money 
to the colonel, not so much to help the colonel as to save 
John Barclay? The Larger Good is a slow, vicious, accumu¬ 
lative poison, and heaven only knows when it will come 
out and kill. 

It was a week after the pipe-organ recital at the church, 
when Mary Barclay, doing her day’s marketing, ran into 
Colonel Culpepper standing rather forlornly in front of 
McHurdie’s shop. He bowed to her with elaborate 
graciousness, and she stopped to speak with him. In a 
moment he was saying, “ So you have not heard, are un¬ 
aware, entirely ignorant, in point of fact, of my misfor¬ 
tunes ? ” She assented, and the colonel went on : “Well, 
madam, the end has come; I have played out my hand; I 
have strutted my hour upon the stage, and now I go off. 
Old Mart Culpepper, my dear, is no longer the leading 
citizen, nor our distinguished capitalist, not even the 
hustling real estate agent of former days — just plain old 
Mart Culpepper, I may say. He who was, is now a has* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


285 


been, — just an old man without a business.” He saw 
that she did not appreciate what had happened, and he 
smiled gently and said : “ Closed up, my dear madam. A 
receiver was appointed a few minutes ago for the Cub 
pepper Mortgage Company, and I gave him the key. 
Failure — failure — ” he repeated the word bitterly — 
“ failure is written over the door of this life.” 

Mary Barclay grasped his big fat hand and pressed it, 
and shook her head. Something in her throat choked her, 
and she could not speak at first. The two stood a moment 
in silence before the woman said emphatically, “No — 
no ! Martin Culpepper, God is keeping your books ! ” 

The shabby old man stood uncovered, a smile quivering 
about his eyes. “ Maybe so, Mary Barclay, maybe so,” 
he said. The smile fell into his countenance as he added, 
“ That is why I have gone so long without a settlement; 
with my account so badly overdrawn, too.” Then he 
turned to go and walked as lightly down the street as a 
man could walk, broken before his time with the weight 
of a humiliation upon him and a fear greater than his 
shame burning in his fluttering old fr.art. 

And now if you are reading this story to be in the 
company of the rich Mr. Barclay, to feel the madness of 
his millions, to enjoy the vain delirium of his power, skip 
the rest of this chapter. For it tells of a shabby time in 
the lives of all of the threadbare people who move in this 
tale. Even John Barclay sees the seams and basting 
threads of his life here, and as for the others, — the colonel 
and Jake and the general and Watts, and even Molly,—- 
what do these people mean to you, these common people, 
in their old clothes, with their old hearts and their rusty 
sins and their homely sorrows? Milord and his lady will 
not scamper across these .pages; no rooms with rich ap¬ 
pointments will gladden your eyes, and perhaps in the 
whole book you will not find a man in evening dress nor 
a woman in a dinner gown. And now the only thing 
there is to offer is Jake Dolan, aged fifty-seven, with scanty, 
grizzled hair, sitting in his shirt-sleeves in the basement 
of the court-house, with the canvas cot he sleeps on for a 


286 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


chair, mending his blue army coat. Beside him on the 
bed are his trousers, thin, almost worn through, patched 
as to the knees and as to other important places, but clean 
and without a loose thread hanging from them. Surely 
an old Irishman mending an old army coat under a dusty 
electric light bulb in the basement of a court-house, 
wherein he is janitor by grace of the united demand of 
Henry Schnitzler Post of the G.A.R. No. 432, is not 
a particularly inspiring picture. But he has bitten the 
last thread with his teeth, and is putting away the sewing 
outfit. And now Mr. Dolan, from the drawer of a little 
table beside the cot, — a table with Bob Hendricks’ picture, 
framed in plush, sitting on the top, — now Mr. Dolan takes 
from the drawer a tablet of writing paper printed by the 
county. It is his particular pride, that writing paper. 
For upon it at the top is the picture of the new one-hundred- 
thousand-dollar court-house, and beside the court-house 
picture are these words: “ Office of Jacob Dolan, Custo¬ 
dian of Public Buildings and Grounds of Garrison 
County.” Mr. Dolan will be writing a letter, and so 
long as it begins wPh “ Dear Sir,” and nothing more en¬ 
dearing, surely we may look over his shoulder while he 
writes,—even though it is bad form. And as Mr. Dolan 
will be writing to “Robert Hendricks, care of Cook’s 
Hotel, Cairo, Egypt,” — which he spells with an “i,” but 
let that pass, and let some of his literary style and con¬ 
struction pass with it, — and as he will be writing to Mr. 
Hendricks, perhaps.Miss Nancy may do well to go sit in 
the corridor and put her fingers in her ears while we read. 
For Mr. Dolan is an emotional man, and he is breathing 
hard, and by the way he grabs his pen and jabs it into the 
ink one can see that he is angry. 

“ Drar Sir (begins Mr. Dolan) : T take my pen in hand to answer 
yonrs of this date from New York and would have written you 
anyhow, as there is much on my mind and I would cable you, but I 
can’t, being for the moment short of funds. I write to say, Robert, 
that we have Mart Culpepper in jail—right across the hall. He 
came in at nine o’clock to-night, and the damn Pop judge put his 
bail at $15,999 to cover his alleged shortage, and the stinker won’t 
accept us old boys on the bond — Phil and Watts and Os and the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


28? 


Company ‘ C ; boys I could get before the judge went to bed, and Gabe 
Carnine, the gut, would not sign —would not sign old Mart’s bond, 
sir, and I hope to be in hell with a fishpole some day poking him 
down every time his slimy fingers get on the rim of the kettle. But 
we’ll have him out in the morning, if every man in Garrison County 
has to go on the bond. They say Mart received money to pay four or 
five mortgages due to a Vermont Bank, and they sent a detective here 
about a month ago and worked up the case, and closed his business 
to-day and waited until to-night to arrest him. I’ve just come from 
Mart. It’s hell. Hoping this will find you enjoying the same I beg 
my dear sir to sign myself 

“ Your ob’t s’r’v’t J. Dolan.’* 

When Jacob Dolan finished his letter, he addressed the 
envelope and hurried away to mail it. And so long as 
we are here in the court-house, and the custodian is gone, 
would you like to step in and see Martin Culpepper across 
the hall ? It is still in the basement now, and if you are 
quiet, so quiet that the slipping patter of a rat’s foot on 
the floor comes to you, a sound as of a faint whining will 
come to you also. There — now it comes again. No, it 
is not a dog ; it is a man — a man in his agony. Shall 
we open the great iron door, and go into the cell room ? 
Why, not even you, Miss Nancy — not even you, who love 
tears so ? You would not see much—only a man, with 
his coat and vest off, an old man with a rather shaggy, ill- 
kept chin whisker and not the cleanest shirt in the world 
— though it is plaited, and once was a considerable gar¬ 
ment. And the man wearing it, who lies prostrate upon 
his face, once was a considerable man. But he is old 
now, old and broken, and if he should look up, as you 
stepped in the corridor before him, you would see a 
great face ripped and scarred by fear and guilt, and eyes 
that look so piteously at you — eyes of a man who cannot 
understand why the blow has fallen, surprised eyes with a 
horror in them ; and if he should speak, you will find, a 
voice rough and mushy with asthma. The heart that has 
throbbed so many nights in fear and the breath that has 
been held for so many footsteps, at last have turned their 
straining into disease. No—let’s not go in. He bade 
his daughter go, and would not see his wife, and they have 


288 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


sent to the City for his son, — so let us not bother him, for 
to-morrow he will be out on bail. But did you hear that 
fine, trembling, animal whine — that cry that wrenched 
itself out of set teeth like a living thing ? Come on—let 
us go and find Jake, and if he is taking a drink, don’t 
blame him too much, Miss Nancy — how would you like 
to sleep in that room across the corridor ? 

At nine o’clock the next morning two hundred men had 
signed the bond the judge required, and Martin Cul¬ 
pepper shambled home with averted eyes. They tried to 
carry him on their shoulders, thinking it would cheer him 
up; and from the river wards of the town scores came to 
give him their hands. But he shook himself away from 
them, like a great whipped dog, and walked slowly up the 
hill, and turned into Lincoln Avenue alone. 

John Barclav heard the news of the colonel’s trouble as he 
stepped from his private car in the Sj^camore Ridge yards 
that morning, and Jane went to the Culpepper home with¬ 
out stopping at her own. That afternoon, Molly Brown- 
well knocked at Barclay’s office door in the mill, and went 
in without waiting for him to open it. She was pale and 
haggard, and she sat down before he could speak to her. 

“John,” she said in a dead voice that smote his heart, 
“ I have come for my reward now. I never thought I’d 
ask it, John, but last night I thought it all out, and I 
don’t believe it’s begging.” 

“ No,” he replied quietly, “it’s not. I am sure — ” 

But she did not let him finish. She broke in with : 
“ Oh, I don’t want any of your money; I want my own 
money — money that you got when you sold me into bond¬ 
age, John Barclay—do you remember when?” She 
cried the last words in a tremulous little voice, and then 
caught herself, and went on before lie could put into 
words the daze in his face. “ Let me tell you ; do you 
remember the day you called me up into your office and 
asked me to hold Adrian in town to save the wheat com¬ 
pany ? Yes, you do—you know you do! And you 
remember that you played on my love for Bob, and my 
duty to father. Well, I saved you, didn’t I ? ” 

“ Yes, you did, Molly,” Barclay replied. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


289 


She stared a moment at the framed pictures of mill 
designs on the wall, and at the wheat samples on the long 
table near her, and did not speak; nor did he. She 
finally broke the silence : “Well, I saved you, but what 
about father — ” her voice broke into a sob — “and Bob 
— Jane has told you what Bob and I have been — and 
what about me — what have you taken from me in these 
twenty years ? Oh, John, John, what a fearful wreck we 
have made of life — you with your blind selfishness, and 
I with my weakness! Did you know, John, that the 
money that father borrowed that day, twenty years ago, 
of Adrian, to lend to you, is the very money that sent him 
to jail last night ? I guess he — he took what wasn’t his 
to pay it back.” Her face twitched, and she was losing 
control of her voice. Barclay stepped to the door and 
latched it. She watched him and shook her head sadly. 
“ You needn’t be afraid, John — I’m not going to make a 
scene.” 

“It’s all right, Molly,” said Barclay. “I want to help 
you—you know that. I’m sorry, Molly — infinitely 
sorry.” 

She looked at him for a moment in silence, and then 
said : “ Yes, John, I’ll give you credit for that; I think 
you’re as sorry as a selfish man like you can be. But are 
you sorry enough to go to jail a pauper, like father, or 
wander over the earth alone, like Bob, or come and beg for 
money, like me ? ” Then she caught herself quickly and 
cried : “Only it’s not begging, John —it’s my own; it’s 
the price you got when you sold me into bondage ; it’s 
the price of my soul, and I need it now. Those people 
only want their money — that is all.” 

“Yes,” he replied, “I suppose that is all they want.” 
He drummed on his desk a moment and then asked, 
“ Does your father know how much it is ? ” 

“ Yes,” she answered, “ I found in his desk at the house 
last night a paper on which he had been figuring — poor 
father — all the night before. All the night before—-” 
she repeated, and then sobbed, “ Poor father — all the 
night before. He knew it was coming. He knew the 


290 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


detective was here. He told me to-day that the sum he 
had there was correct. It is sixteen thousand five hun¬ 
dred and forty-three dollars. But he doesn’t know I’m 
here, John. I told him I had some money of my own — 
some I’d had for years — and I have — oh, I have, John 
Barclay — I have.” She looked up at him with the pallid 
face stained with fresh tears and asked, 44 1 have — I 
have — haven’t I, John, haven’t I?” 

He put his elbows on the desk and sank his head in his 
hands and sighed, 44 Yes, Molly — yes, you have.” 

They sat in silence until the roar ^f the waters and the 
murmur of the wheels about them came into the room. 
Then the woman rose to go. 44 Well, John,” she said, 44 1 
suppose one shouldn’t thank a person for giving her her 
own — but I do, John. Oh, it’s like blood money to me—• 
but father— I can’t let father suffer.” 

She walked to the door, he stepped to unlatch it, and 
she passed out without saying good-by. When she was 
gone, he slipped the latch, and sat down with his hands 
gripping the table before him. As he sat there, he looked 
across the years and saw some of the havoc he had made. 
There was no shirking anything that he saw. A footfall 
passing the door made him start as if he feared to be 
caught in some guilty act. Yet he knew the door was 
locked. He choked a little groan behind his teeth, and 
then reached for the top of his desk, pulled down the 
rolling cover, and limped quickly out of the room—as 
though he were leaving a corpse. What he saw was the 
ghost of the Larger Good, mocking him through the veil 
of the past, and asking him such questions as only a man’s 
soul may hear and not resent. 

He walked over the mill for a time, and then calling his 
stenographers from their room, dictated them blind and 
himself dumb with details of a deal he was putting through 
to get control of the cracker companies of the country. 
When lie finished, the sunset was glaring across the water 
through the window in front of him, and he had laid his 
ghost. But Molly Brownwell had her check, and her 
father was saved. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


29i 


That evening the colonel sat with Watts McHurclie, 
on the broad veranda of the Culpepper home, and as the 
moon came out, General Ward wandered up the walk and 
Jake Dolan came singing down the street about “the relic 
of old dacincy — the hat me father wore.” Perhaps he 
had one drink in him, and perhaps two, or maybe three, 
but he clicked the gate behind him, and seeing the three 
men on the veranda, he called out: — 

“ Hi, you pig-stealing Kansas soldiers, haven’t ye heard 
the war is over ? ” And then he carolled: “ Oh, can’t get 
’em up, Oh, can’t get ’em up, Oh, can’t get ’em up in the 
mornin’ — Get up, you ” — but the rest of the song, being 
devoted to the technical affairs of war, and ending with a 
general exhortation to the soldier to “ get into your 
breeches,” would give offence to persons of sensitive 
natures, and so may as well be omitted from this story. 

There was an awkward pause when Dolan came on the 
veranda. The general had just tried to break the ice, 
but Dolan was going at too high a speed to be checked. 

“ Do you know,” he asked, “ what I always remember 
when I hear that call ? You do not. I’ll tell you. ’Twas 
the morning of the battle of Wilson’s Creek, and Mart and 
me was sleeping under a tree, when the bugler of the 
Johnnies off somewhere on the hill he begins to crow that, 
and it wakes Mart up, and he rolls over on me and he 
says: 4 Jake,’ he says, or maybe ’twas me says, ‘Mart,’ 
says I —- anyway, one of us says, ‘ Shut up your gib, you 
flannel-mouthed mick,’ he says, ‘ and let me pull my dream 
through to the place where I find the money,’ he says. 
And I says, ‘ D’ye know what I’m goin’ to do when I get 
home?’ says I. ‘No,’ says he, still keen for that money; 
‘ no,’ says he, ‘ unless it is you’re going to be hanged by 
way of diversion,’ he says. ‘I’m going to hire .a bugler,’ 
says I. ‘What fer — in the name of all the saints?’ 
says he. ‘ Well,’ says I, ‘I’m going to ask him to blow 
his damn horn under my window every morning at five 
o’clock,’ I says, ‘ and then I’m going to get up and poke 
my head out of the window and say : “ Mister, you can get 
me up in the army, but on this occasion would you be 


292 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


obliging enough to go to hell”! ’ And Mart, seeing thav 
the money was gone from his dream, he turns over and 
wallops me with the blanket till I was merely a palpitating 
mass. That was a great battle, though, boys — a great 
battle.” 

And then they shouldered arms and showed how fields 
were won. Boom ! went Sigel’s guns out of the past, and 
crash! came the Texas cavalry, and the whoop of the 
Louisiana Pelicans rang in their ears. They marched south 
after Hindman, and then came back with Grant, to Vicks¬ 
burg, where they fought and bled and died. The general 
left them and went east, where he “deployed on our 
right ” and executed flank movements, and watched 
Pickett’s column come fling itself to death at Gettysburg. 
And Watts McHurdie rode with the artillery through the 
rear of the rebel lines at Pittsburg Landing, and when 
the rebel officer saw the little man’s bravery, and watched 
him making for the Union lines bringing three guns, he 
waved his hat and told his soldiers not to shoot at that 
boy. The colonel took a stick and marked out on the floor 
our position at Antietam, and showed where the reserves 
were supposed to be and how the enemy masked his guns 
behind that hill, and we planted our artillery on the opposite 
ridge; and he marched with the infantry and lay in ambush 
while the enemy came marching in force through the wood. 
In time Watts McHurdie was talking to Lincoln in the 
streets of Richmond, and telling for the hundredth time 
what Lincoln said of the song and how he had sung it. 
But who cares now what Lincoln said ? It was something 
kind, you may be sure, with a tear and a laugh in it, and 
the veterans laughed, while their eyes grew moist as they 
always did when Watts told it. Then they fell to carnage 
again -a fierce fight against time, against the moment when 
they must leave their old companion alone. Up hills they 
charged and down dales, and the moon rose high, and cast 
its shadow to the eastward before they parted. First 
Dolan edged away, and then the general went, waving his 
hand military fashion; and the colonel returned the salute. 
When the gate had clanged, Watts rose to go. He did not 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


293 


speak, nor did the colonel. Arm in arm, they walked 
down the steps together, and halfway down the garden 
path the colonel rested his hand on the little man’s shoul¬ 
der as they walked in silence At the gate they saw each 
other’s tears, and the little man’s voice failed him when the 
colonel said, “Well, good-by, comrade — good night.” 
So Watts turned and ran, while the colonel, for the first 
time in his manhood, loosed the cords of his sorrow and 
stood alone in the moonlight with upturned face, swaying 
like an old tree in a storm. 


CHAPTER XXI 


And now those who have avoided the gray unpainted 
shame of these unimportant people of the Ridge may here 
take up again for a moment the trailing clouds of glory 
that shimmer over John Barclay’s office in the big City. 
For here there is the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal 
of great worldly power. Here sits John Barclay, a little 
gray-haired, gray-clad, lynx-eyed man, in a big light 
room at the corner of a tower high over the City in the 
Corn Exchange Building, the brain from which a million 
nerves radiate that run all over the world and move 
thousands of men. Forty years before, when John was 
playing in the dust of the road leading up from the Syca¬ 
more, no king in all the world knew so much of the day’s 
doings as John knows now, sitting there at the polished 
mahogany table with the green blotting paper upon it, 
under the green vase adorned with the red rose. A blight 
may threaten the wheat in Argentine, and John Barclay 
knows every cloud that sails the sky above that wheat, 
and when the cloud bursts into rain he sighs, for it means 
something to him, though heaven only knows what, and 
we and heaven do not care. But a dry day in India Ox 
a wet day in Russia or a cloudy day in the Dakotas are 
all taken into account in the little man’s plans. And if 
princes quarrel and kings grow weary of peace, and money 
bags refuse them war, John Barclay knows it and puts 
the episode into figures on the clean white pad of paper 
before him. 

It is a privilege to be in this office; one passes three 
doors to get here, and even at the third door our statesmen 
often cool their toes. Mr. Barclay is about to admit one 
now. And when Senator Myton comes in, deferentially 
of course, to tell Mr. Barclay the details of the long fight 
in executive session which ended in the confirmation by the 

294 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


295 


.senate of Lige Bemis as a federal judge, the little gray 
man waves the senator to a chair, and runs his pencil up a 
column of figures, presses a button, writes a word on a 
sheet of paper, and when the messenger appears, hands 
the paper to him and says, “ For Judge Bemis.” 

“I have just dismissed a Persian satrap,” expands Bar¬ 
clay, “ who won’t let his people use our binders ; that 
country eventually will be a great field for our Mediterra¬ 
nean branch.” 

My ton is properly impressed. For a man who can 
make a senator out of Red River clay and a federal judge 
out of Lige Bemis is a superhuman creature, and Myton 
does not doubt Barclay’s power over satraps. 

When the business of the moment between the two men 
is done, Barclay, rampant with power, says: “Myton” 
(it is always “ Myton,” never “ Senator,” with Barclay; 
he finds it just as well to let his inferiors know their 
relation to the universe), “Myton, I ran across a queer 
thing last week when I took over that little jerkwater 
New England coast line. The Yankees are a methodical 
lot of old maids. I find they had been made agents of a lot 
of the big fellows — insurance people, packing-houses, and 
transcontinental railroads — two of my lines were paying 
them, though I’d forgotten about it until I looked it up 
— and the good old sewing society had card-indexed the 
politics of the United States — the whole blessed coun¬ 
try, by state and congressional districts. I took over 
the chap who runs it, and I’ve got the whole kit in the 
offices here now. It’s great. If a man bobs up for some¬ 
thing in Florida or Nebraska, we just run him down on 
the card index, and there he stands — everything he ever 
did, every interview he ever gave, every lawsuit he ever 
had, every stand he ever took in politics — right there 
in the index, in an envelope ready for use, and all the 
mean things ever written about him. I simply can’t 
make a mistake now in getting the wrong kind of fellows 
in. Commend me to a Yankee or a Jap for pains. I can 
tell you in five minutes just what influences are behind 
every governor, congressman, senator, judge, most of the 


296 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


legislators in every state, the federal courts clear up to 
the Supreme Court. There was a man appointed on that 
court less than a dozen years ago who swapped railroad 
receiverships like a tin peddler with his senator for his 
job, when he was on the circuit bench. And he was con¬ 
siderable of a judge in the bean country for a time. Just 
to verify my index, I asked Bemis about this judge. 
‘ Lige,’ I said, ‘was Judge So-and-So a pretty honest 
judge?’ ‘ Oh, hell,’says Lige, and that was all I could 
get out of him. So I guess they had him indexed right.’*' 
And Barclay rattles on; he has become vociferous and 
loquacious, and seems to like to hear the roar of his voice 
in his head. The habit has been growing on him. 

But do not laugh at the blindness of John Barclay, sit¬ 
ting there in his power, admiring himself, boasting in the 
strength of his card-index to Senator My ton. For the 
tide of his power was running in, and soon it would be 
high tide with John Barclay — high tide of his power, 
high tide of his fame, high tide of his pride. So let us 
watch the complacent smile crack his features as he sits 
listening to Senator Myton : “ Mr. Barclay, do you know, 
I sometimes think that Providence manifests itself in 
minds like yours, even as in the days of old it was mani¬ 
fest in the hearts of the prophets. In those days it was 
piety that fitted the heart for higher things ; to-day it is 
business. You and a score of men like you in America 
are intrusted with the destiny of this republic, as surely as 
the fate of the children of Israel was in the hands of 
Moses and Aaron ! ” 

Barclay closed his eyes a moment, in contemplation of 
the figure, and then broke out in a roaring laugh, “ Hanno 
is a god ! Hanno is a god ! — get out of here, Henry 
Myton, — get out of here, I say — this is my busy day,” 
and he laughed the young senator out of the room. But 
he sat alone in his office grinning, as over and over in his 
mind his own words rang, “ Hanno is a god ! ” And the 
foolish parrot of his other self cackled the phrase in his 
soul for days and days! 

It is our high privilege thus to stand close by and watcl 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


297 


the wheels of the world go around. In those days of the 
late nineties Barclay travelled up and down the earth 
so much in his private car that Jane used to tell Molly 
Brown well that living with John was like being a travel¬ 
ling man’s wife. But Jane did not seem to appreciate her 
privilege. She managed to stay at home as much as pos¬ 
sible, and sometimes he took the Masons along for com¬ 
pany. Mrs. Mason gloried in it, and lived at the great 
hotels and shopped at the highest-priced antique stores to 
her heart’s delight. Lycurgus’ joy was in being inter¬ 
viewed, and the Barclay secretaries got so that they could 
edit the Mason interviews and keep out the poison, and let 
the old man swell and swell until the people at home thought 
he must surely burst with importance at the next town. 

One day in the nineties Barclay appropriated a half-mill¬ 
ion dollars to advertise 44 Barclay’s Best ” and a cracker 
that he was pushing. When the man who placed the 
business in the newspaper had gone, Barclay sat looking 
out of the window and said to his advertising manager : 
“ I’ve got an idea. Why should I pay a million dollars to 
irresponsible newspapers? I won’t do it.” 

44 But we must advertise, Mr. Barclay — you’ve proved 
it pays.” 

44 Yes,” he returned, 44 you bet it pays, and I might just as 
well get something out of it besides advertising. Take this; 
make five copies of it; I’ll give you the addresses later.” 
Barclay squared himself to a stenographer to dictate : — 

“ Dear Sir : I spend a million dollars a year advertising grain prod¬ 
ucts; you and the packers doubtless spend that much advertising your 
products and by-products; the railroads spend as much more, and the 
Oil people probably half as much more. Add the steel products and 
the lumber products, and we have ten million dollars going into the 
press of this country. In a crisis we cannot tell how these newspapers 
will treat us. I think we should organize so that we will know exactly 
where we stand. Therefore it is necessary absolutely to control the 
trade advertising of this country. A company to take over the five 
leading advertising agencies could be formed, for half as much as we 
spend every year, and we could control nine-tenths of the American 
trade advertising. We could then put an end to any indiscriminate 
mobbing of corporations by editors. I will be pleased to hear from 
you further upon this subject.” 


298 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


A day or two later, when the idea had grown and rami¬ 
fied itself in his mind, he talked it all out to Jane and 
exclaimed, “ How will old Phil Ward’s God manage 
to work it out, as he says, against that proposition? 
Brains,” continued Barclay, “brains — that’s what counts 
in this world. You can’t expect the men who dominate 
this country — who make its wealth, and are responsible 
for its prosperity, to be at the mercy of a lot of long-nosed 
reformers who don’t know howto cash their own checks.” 

How little this rich man knew of the world about him! 
How circumscribed was his vision! With all his goings 
up and down the earth, with all of his great transactions, 
with all of his apparent power, how little and sordid was 
his outlook on life. For he thought he was somebody in 
this universe, some one of importance, and in his scheme 
of things he figured out a kind of partnership between him¬ 
self and Providence — a partnership to run the world in 
the interests of John Barclay, and of course, wherever 
possible, with reasonable dividends to Providence. 

But a miracle was coming into the world. In the un¬ 
der-consciousnesses of men, sown God only knows how and 
when and where, sown in the weakness of a thousand blind 
prophets, the seeds of righteous wrath at greed like John 
Barclay’s were growing during all the years of his triumph. 
Men scarcely knew it themselves. Growth is so simple 
and natural a process that its work is done before its 
presence is known. And so this arrogant man, this miser¬ 
able, little, limping,brass-eyed, leather-skinned man, looked 
out at the world around him, and did not see the change 
that was quickening the hearts of his neighbours. 

And yet change was in everything about him. A thou¬ 
sand years are as but a watch in the night, and tick, tock, 
tick, tock, went the great clock, and the dresses of little 
Jeanette Barclay slipped down, down, down to her shoe- 
tops, and as the skirts slipped down she went up. And 
before her father knew it her shoe-tops sank out of sight, 
and she was a miss at the last of her teens. But he still 
gave her his finger when they walked out together, though 
she was head and shoulders above him. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


299 


One day when she led him to the Banner office to buy 
some fancy programmes for a party she was giving, he saw 
her watching young Neal Ward, — youngest son of the 
general, — who was sitting at a reporter’s desk in the office, 
and the father’s quick eyes saw that she regarded the 
youth as a young man. For she talked so obviously for 
the Ward boy’s benefit that her father, when they went 
out of the printing-office, took a furtive look at his 
daughter and sighed and knew what her mother had 
known for a year. 

“Jeanette,” he said that night at dinner, “where’s my 
shot-gun ? ” When she told him, he said : “ After dinner 
you get it, load it with salt, and put it in the corner by 
the front door.” Then he added to the assembled family: 
“For boys — dirty-faced, good-for-nothing, long-legged 
boys! I’m going to have a law passed making an open 
season for boys in this place from January first until 
Christmas.” 

Jeanette dimpled and blushed, the family smiled, and 
her mother said: “Well, John, there’ll be a flock of them 
at Jeanette’s party next week for you to practise on. All 
the boys and girls in town are coming.” 

And after dessert was served the father sat chuckling 
and grinning and grunting, “Boys — boys,” and at inter¬ 
vals, “ Measly little milk-eyed kids,” and again “ Boys —- 
boys,” while th c family nibbled at its cheese. 

Those yeai'b when the nineteenth century was nearing 
its close and when the tide of his fortunes was running 
in, bringing him power and making him mad with it, 
were years of change in Sycamore Ridge — in the old as 
well as in the young. In those years the lilacs bloomed 
on in the Culpepper yard; and John Barclay did not know 
it, though forty years before Ellen Culpepper had guarded 
the first blossoms from those bushes for him. Miss Lucy, 
his first ideal, went to rest in those years while the boom¬ 
ing tide was running in, and he scarcely knew it. Mrs. 
Culpepper was laid beside Ellen out on the Hill; and he hardly 
realized it, though no one in all the town had watched 
him growing into worldly success with so kindly an eye 


300 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


as she. But the tide was roaring in, and John Barclay’s 
whole consciousness was turned toward it; the real things 
of life about him, he did not see and could not feel. 
And so as the century is old the booming tide is full, and 
John Barclay in his power — a bubble in the Divine con¬ 
sciousness, a mere vision in the real world — stands stark 
mad before his phantasm, dreaming that it is all real, and 
chattering to his soul, “ Hanno is a god.” 

And now we must leave John Barclay for the moment, 
to explain why Neal Dow Ward, son of General Philemon 
Ward, made his first formal call at the Barclays’. It can¬ 
not be gainsaid that young Mr. Ward, aged twenty-one, a 
senior at Ward University, felt a tingle in his blood that day 
when he met Miss Jeanette Barclay, aged eighteen, and home 
for the spring vacation from the state university; and seeing 
her for the first time with her eyes and her hair and her 
pretty, strong, wide forehead poking through the cocoon 
of gawky girlhood, created a distinct impression on young 
Mr. Ward. 

But in all good faith it should be stated that he did not 
make his first formal call at the Barclays’ of his own ac¬ 
cord; for his sister, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward, took him. 
She came home from the Culpeppers’just before supper,, 
laughing until she was red in the face. And what she 
heard at the Culpeppers’, let her tell in her own way to the 
man of her heart. For Lizzie was her fa her’s child; the 
four other Ward girls, Mary Livermore, Prances Willard, 
Belva Lockwood, and Helen Gougar, had climbed to the 
College Heights and had gone to Ward University, and 
from that seat of learning had gone forth in the world to 
teach school. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward had remained 
in the home, after her mother’s death filling her mother’s 
vacant place as well as a daughter may. 

“ Well, father,” said the daughter, as she was putting 
the evening meal on the table, addressing the general, who 
sat reading by the window in the dining room, “ you 
should have been at the Culpeppers’ when the colonel 
came home and told us his troubles. It seems that Nellie 
McLIurdie is going to make Watts run for sheriff—for 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


301 


1 

sheriff, father. Imagine Watts heading a posse, or lock¬ 
ing any one up ! And Watts has passed the word to the 
colonel, and he has passed it to Molly and me, and I am 
to see Mrs. Barclay, and she is to see Mrs. Carnine to¬ 
morrow morning, and they are all to set to work on Nellie 
and get her to see that it won’t do. Poor Watts — the 
colonel says he is terribly wrought up at the prospect.” 

The general folded his paper and smiled as he said: 
u Well, I don ’t know ; Watts was a brave soldier. He 
would make a good enough sheriff; but I suppose he 
doesn’t really care for it.” 

“Why, no, of course not, father—why should he?” 
asked the daughter. u Anyhow, I want you to make Neal 
go down to Barclays’ with me to-night to talk it over 
with Jane. Neal,” she called to the young man who was 
sitting on the porch with his book on his knee, “ Neal, I 
want you to go to Barclays’ with me to-night. Come in 
now, supper’s ready.” 

And so it happened that Neal Dow Ward made his first 
call on Jeanette Barclay with his sister, and they all sat 
on the porch together that fine spring evening, with the 
perfume of the lilacs in the air; and it happened naturally 
enough that the curious human law of attraction which 
unites youth should draw the chairs of the two young 
people together as they talked of the things that interest 
youth — the parties and the ball-games and the fraterni¬ 
ties and sororities, and the freshman picnic and the senior 
grind; while the chairs of the two others drew together 
as they talked of the things which interest women in mid¬ 
dle life—the affairs of the town, the troubles of Watts 
McHurdie, the bereavement of the Culpeppers, the scarcity 
of good help in the kitchen, the popularity of Max Nordau’s 
“ Social Evolution,” and the fun in “ David Harum.” Nor is 
it strange that after the girl had shown the boy her Pi Phi 
pin, and he had shown her his Phi Delta shield, they should 
fall to talking of the new songs, and that they should slip 
into the big living room of the Barclay home, lighted by 
the electric lamps in the hall, and that she should sit down 
to the piano to show him how the new song went. And if 


302 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


the moonlight fell across the piano, and upon her face as 
she sang the little Irish folk-song, all in minors, with her 
high, trembling, half-formed notes in the upper register, 
and if she flushed and looked up abashed and had to be 
teased to go on, — not teased a great deal, but a little, — 
will you blame the young man if he forgot for a moment 
that her father was worth such a lot of money, and thought 
only that she was a beautiful girl, and said so with his 
eyes and face and hands in the pretty little pause that 
followed when she ceased singing? And if to hide her 
confusion when her heart knew what he thought, she put 
one foot on the loud pedal of the piano and began singing 
“O Margery, O Margery,” and he sang with her, and if 
they thrilled just a little as their voices blended in the rol¬ 
licking song—what of it? What of it? Was it not 
natural that lilacs should grow in April ? Was it not 
natural that Watts McHurdie should dread the white 
light that beats upon the throne of the sheriff’s office ? 
Was it not natural that he should turn to women for pro¬ 
tection against one of their sex, and that the women plot¬ 
ting for him should have a boy around and having a boy 
around where there is a girl around, and spring around 
and lilacs around and a moon and music and joy around, — 
what is more natural in all this world than that in the fire 
struck by the simple joy of youth there should be the 
flutter of unseen wings around, and when the two had 
finished singing, with something passing between their 
hearts not in the words, what is more natural than that 
the girl, half frightened at the thrill in her soul, should 
say timidly : — 

“I think they will miss us out there — don’t you?” as 
she rose from the piano. 

And if you were a boy again, only twenty-one, to whom 
millions of money meant nothing, would you not catch the 
blue eyes of the girl as she looked up at you, in the twi¬ 
light of the big room, and answer, 44 All right, Jeanette”? 
Certainly if you had known a girl all your life, you would 
call her by her first name, if her father were worth a billion, 
and would you not continue, emboldened some way by not 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


303 


being frowned upon for calling her Jeanette, though she 
would have been astonished if you had said Miss Barclay — 
astonished and maybe a little fearful of your sincerity — 
would you not continue, after a little pause, repeating your 
words, “All right, Jeanette — I suppose so — but I don’t 
care — do you?” as you followed her through the door 
back to the moon-lit porch? 

And as you walked home, listening to your elder sister, 
would you not have time and inclination to wonder from 
what remote part of this beautiful universe, from what 
star or what fairy realm, that creature came, whose hair 
you pulled yesterday, whose legs seem to have been covered 
with long skirts in the twinkling of an eye, and whose un* 
related features by some magic had sloughed off, leaving a 
beautiful face ? Would you not think these things, good 
kind sir, when you were twenty-one — even though to-day 
they seem highly improbable thoughts for any one to have 
who was not stark mad? But if we were not all stark mad 
sometimes, how would the world go round? If we were 
not all mad sometimes, who would make our dreams come 
true? How would visions in thin air congeal into facts, 
how would the aspirations of the race make history? And 
if we were all sane all the time, how would the angels ever 
get babies into the world at all, at all ? 


CHAPTER XXII 


“ Speaking of lunatics,” said Mr. Dolan to Mr. Hen¬ 
dricks one June night, a few weeks after the women had 
persuaded Mrs. McHurdie not to drag the poet into 
politics,—“speaking of lunatics, you may remember that I 
was born in Boston, and ’twas my duty as a lad to drive 
the Cambridge car, and many a time I have heard Mr. 
Holmes the poet and Mr. Emerson the philosopher dis¬ 
cussing how the world was made ; whether it was objective 
or subjective, — which 1 take it to mean whether the world 
is in the universe or only in your eye. One fine winter 
night we were waiting on a switch for the Boston car, 
when Mr. Holmes said to Mr. Emerson : ‘ What,’ says he, 
4 would you think if Jake Dolan driving this car should 
come in and say, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but the moon I 
see this moment is not some millions of miles away, but 
entirely in my own noddle? ” ’ 4 I’d think,’ says the great 

philosopher, never blinking, ‘that Mr. Dolan was drunk,’ 
says he. And there the discussion ended, but it has been 
going on in my head ever since. Here I am a man climb¬ 
ing up my sixties, and when have 1 seen the moon? Once 
walking by this very creek here trying to get me cour¬ 
age up to put me arm around her that is now Mary 
Carnine ; once with me head poked up close to the heads 
of Watts McHurdie, Gabe Carnine, and Philemon Ward, 
serenading the girls under the Thayer House window the 
night before we left for the army. And again to-night, 
sitting here on the dam, listening to the music coming 
down the mill-pond. Did you notice them, Robert — the 
young people — Phil Ward’s boy, and John Barclay’s girl, 
and Mary Carnine’s oldest, and Oscar Fernald’s youngest, 
with their guitars and mandolins, piling into the boats and 
rowing up stream? And now they’re singing the songs 
we sang — to their mothers, God bless ’em — the other 

304 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


305 


day before these children were born or thought of, and 
now I sit here an cld man looking at the moon.” 

“ But is it the moon? ” he went on after a long silence, 
puffing at his pipe. “ If the moon is off there, three or 
thirty or three hundred million miles away in the sky, 
where has it been these forty years? I’ve not seen it. 
And yet here she pops out of my memory into my eye, 
and if I say the moon has always been in my eye, and is 
still in my eye, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson says I’m 
drunk. But does that settle the question of who’s got 
the moon — me or the cosmos — as the poets call it ? ” 
After that the two men smoked in silence, and as Hen¬ 
dricks threw away the butt of his cigar, Dolan said, u ’Tis 
a queer, queer world, Robert — a queer, queer world.” 

Now do not smile at Mr. Dolan, gentle reader, for Adam 
must have thought the same thing, and philosophy has 
been able to say nothing more to the point. 

It is indeed a queer, queer world, and our blindness is 
the queerest thing in it. Here a few weeks later sit John 
and Jane Barclay on the terrace before their house one 
June night, listening to singing on the water. Suddenly 
they realize that there is youth in the world —yet there 
has been singing on the mill-pond ever since it was built. 
It has been the habitat of lovers for a quarter of a century, 
this mill-pond, yet Jane and John Barclay have not known 
it, and not until their own child’s voice came up to them, 
singing “ Juanita,” did they realize that the song had not 
begun anew after its twenty years’ silence in their own 
hearts, but always had been on the summer breeze. And 
this is strange, too, considering how rich and powerful John 
Barclay is and how by the scratch of his pen, he might set 
men working by the thousands for some righteous cause. 
Yet so it is; for with all the consciousness of great power, 
with all the feeling of unrestraint that such power gives a 
man, driving him to think he is a kind of god, John Bar¬ 
clay was only a two-legged man, with a limp in one foot, 
and a little mad place in his brain, wherein he kept the 
sense of his relation to the rest of this universe. And as 
he sat, blind to the moon, dreaming of a time when he 


306 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


would control Presidents and dominate courts if the} 
crossed his path, out on the mill-pond under an elm tree 
that spread like a canopy upon the water, a boy, letting the 
oars hang loosely, was playing the mandolin to a girl — a 
pretty girl withal, blue as to eyes, fair as to hair, strong 
as to mouth and chin, and glorious as to forehead — who 
leaned back in the boat, played with the overhanging 
branches, and listened and looked at the moon, and let 
God’s miracle work unhindered in her heart. And all 
up and down those two miles of mill-pond were other 
boats and other boys and other maidens, and as they chatted 
and sang and sat in the moonlight, there grew in their 
hearts, as quietly as the growing of the wheat in the fields, 
that strange marvel of life, that keeps the tide of humanity 
ceaselessly flowing onward. And it is all so simply done 
before our eyes, and in our ears, that we forget it is so 
baffling a mystery. 

Now let us project our astral bodies into the living room 
of the Barclay home, while Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay 
are away in Boston, and only John Barclay’s mother and 
his daughter are in Sycamore Ridge; and let us watch a 
young man of twenty-one and a young woman of eighteen 
dispose of a dish of fudge together. Fudge, it may be ex¬ 
plained to the unsophisticated, is a preparation of chocolate, 
sugar, and cream, cooked, cooled, and cut into squares. As 
our fathers and mothers pulled taffy, as our grandfathers 
and grandmothers conjured with maple sugar, and as their 
parents worked the mysterious spell with some witchery of 
cookery to this generation unknown, so is fudge in these 
piping times the worker of a strange witchery. Observe: 
Through a large room, perhaps forty feet one way and 
twenty-five feet the other way, flits a young woman in the 
summer twilight. She goes about humming, putting a 
vase in place here, straightening a picture there, kicking 
down a flapping rug, or rearranging a chair; then she sits 
down and turns on an electric light and pretends to read. 
But she does not read ; the light shows her something else 
in the room that needs attention, and she turns to that. 
Then she sits down again, and again goes humming about 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Sift 

the room. Suddenly the young woman rises and hurries 
out of the room, and a footstep is heard on the porch, out¬ 
side. A bell tinkles, and a maid appears, and — 

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll see if Miss Jeanette is at 
home! ” 

And then a rustle of skirts is heard on the stairway 
and Miss Jeanette enters with : “ Why, Neal, you are an 
early bird this evening — were you afraid the worm 
would escape? Well, it won’t; it’s right here on the 
piano.” 

The young man’s eyes, — good, clear, well-set, dark 
eyes that match his brown hair; eyes that speak from 
the heart, — note how they dwell upon every detail of the 
opposing figure, caressing with their shy surreptitious 
glances the girl’s hair, her broad forehead, her lips; ob¬ 
serve how they flit back betimes to those ripe red lips, 
like bees that hover over a flower trembling in the wind; 
how the eyes of the young man play about the strong 
chin, and the bewitching curves of the neck and shoul¬ 
ders, and rise again to the hair, and again steal over the 
face, to the strong shoulders, and again hurry back to the 
face lest some feature fade. This is not staring — it is 
done so quickly, so furtively, so deftly withal as the 
minutes fly by, while the lips and the teeth chatter on, 
that the stolen honey of these glances is stored away 
in the heart’s memory, all unknown to him who has 
gathered it. 

An hour has passed now, while we have watched the 
restless eyes at their work, and what has passed with the 
hour? Nothing, ladies and gentlemen — nothing; gib¬ 
ber, chatter, giggles, and squeals — that is all. Grandma 
Barclay above stairs has her opinion of it, and wonders 
how girls can be so addle-pated. In her day — but who 
ever lived long enough or travelled far enough or in¬ 
quired widely enough to find one single girl who was as 
wise, or as sedate, or as industrious, or as meek, or as 
gentle, or as kind as girls were in her grandmother’s day? 
No wonder indeed that grandmothers are all married 
for one could hardly imagine the young men of that day 


308 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


overlooking such paragons of virtue and propriety as lived 
in their grandmothers' days. Fancy an old maid grand¬ 
mother with all those qualities of mind and heart that 
girls had in their grandmothers’ days ! 

So the elder Mrs. Barclay in her room at the top of the 
stairs hears what “lie said,” “he said he said,” and 
what “she said she said,” and what “we girls did,” and 
what “you boys ought to do,” and what “would be per¬ 
fectly lovely,” and what “ would be a lot of fun! ” and 
so grandmother, good soul, grows drowsy, closes her door, 
and goes to bed. She does not know that they are about 
to sit down together on a sofa — not along, straight, cold, 
formal affair, but a small, rather snuggly sofa, with the 
disli between them. No, girls never did that in their 
grandmothers’ days, so of course who would imagine 
they would do so now? Who, indeed? But there they 
are, and there is the dish between them, and two hands 
reaching into the same dish, must of course collide. Col¬ 
lision is inevitable, and by carefully noting the repeti¬ 
tions of the collisions, one may logically infer that the 
collisions are upon the whole rather pleasurable than 
otherwise ; and when it comes to the last piece of fudge 
in the dish, — the very last piece, — the astral observer will 
see that there is just the slightest, the very slightest, 
quickest, most fleeting little tussle of hands for it, and 
much laughter; and then the young woman rises quickly 
— also note the slight pink flush in her cheeks, and she 
goes to her chair and folds her pretty hands in her lap, 
and asks: — 

“Well, do you like my fudge, Neal Ward? Is it as 
good as Belva Lockwood’s ? She puts nuts in hers — I’ve 
eaten it; do you like it with nuts in it ? ” 

“Not so well as this,” says the boy. 

The girl slips into the dining room, for a glass of water. 
See the eyes of the youth following her. It is dusky in 
the dining room, and the youth longs for dusky places, but 
has not developed courage enough to follow her. But he 
has courage enough to steady his eyes as she comes back 
with the water, so that he can look into her blue eyes while 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


300 


you would count as much as one — two — three — slowly 
— four—-slowly — five. A long, long time, so long 
indeed that she wishes he would look just a second 
longer. 

So at the end of the evening here stand Neal, and 
Jeanette, even as Adam and Eve stood in the garden, 
talking of nothing in particular as they slowly move 
toward the door. “ Yes, I suppose so,” she says, as Eve 
said and as Eve’s daughters have said through all the cen¬ 
turies, looking intently at the floor. And then Neal, sud¬ 
denly finding the language of his line back to Adam, looks 
up to say, 44 Oh, yes, I forgot —but have you read ‘Mon¬ 
sieur Beaucaire’?” Now Adam said, “Have you heard 
the new song that the morning stars are singing together? ” 
and Priam asked Helen if she would like to hear that new 
thing of Solomon’s just out, and so as the ages have rolled 
by, young gentlemen standing beside their adored but not 
declared ones have mixed literature with love, and have 
tied wisdom up in a package of candy or wild honey, and 
have taken it to the trysting place since the beginning of 
time. It is thus the poets thrive. And when she was 
asked about the new song of the morning stars, Eve, 
though she knew it as she knew her litany, answered no; 
and so did Eve’s daughter, standing in the dimly lighted 
hallway of the Barclay home in Sycamore Ridge ; and so 
then and there being, these two made their next meeting 
sure. 

In those last years of the last century John Barclay be¬ 
came a powerful man in this world — one of the few hun¬ 
dred men who divided the material kingdoms of this earth 
among them. He was a rich man who was turning his 
money into great political power. Senates listened to him, 
many courts were his in fee simple, because he had bought 
and paid for the men who named the judges; Presidents 
were glad to know what he thought, and when be came to 
the White House, reporters speculated about the talk that 
went on behind the doors of the President’s room, and the 
stock market fluttered. If he desired a law, he paid for 
it and got it — not in a coarse illegal way, to be sure, but 


310 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


through the regular conventional channels of politics, and 
if he desired to step on a law, he stepped on it, and a court 
came running up behind him, and legalized his transaction. 
He sneered at reformers, and mocked God, did John Bar¬ 
clay in those days. He grew arrogant and boastful, and 
strutted in his power like a man in liquor with the vain 
knowledge that he could increase the population of a state 
or a group of states, or he could shrivel the prosperity of 
a section of the country by his whim. For by changing a 
freight rate he could make wheat grow, where grass had 
flourished. By changing the rate again, he could beckon 
back the wilderness. And yet, how small was his power; 
here beside him, cherished as the apple of his eye, was his 
daughter, a slip of a girl, with blue eyes and fair hair, 
whose heart was growing toward the light, as the hearts 
of young things grow, and he, with all of his power, could 
only watch the mystery, and wonder at it. He was not 
displeased at what he saw. But it was one of the few 
things in his consciousness over which he could And no 
way to assume control. He stood in the presence of 
something that came from outside of his realm and ignored 
him as the sun and the rain and the simple processes of 
nature ignored him. 

“Jane,” he said one night, when he was in the Ridge 
for the first time in many weeks, — a night near the end 
of the summer when Jeanette and Neal Ward w*ere 
vaguely feeling their way together, “ Jane, mother says 
that while we’ve been away Neal Ward has been here 
pretty often. You don’t suppose that — ” 

“Well, I’ve rather wondered about it myself a little,” 
responded Jane. “ Neal is such a fine handsome vounsr 
fellow.” 

“But, Jane,” exclaimed Barclay, impatiently, as he rose 
to walk the rug, “Jennie is only a child. Why, she’s 
only — ” 

“Nineteen, John — she’s a big girl now.” 

“ I know, dear,” he protested, “ but that’s absurdly 


youn 5 . 


IQ*. 


Why 


“Yes,” she answered, “ I was nearly twenty when I was 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


311 


engaged to you, and Jennie’s not engaged yet, nor prob¬ 
ably even thinking seriously of it.” 

“ Don’t you think,” cried Barclay, as he limped down 
the diagonal of the rug, “that you should do something ? 
Isn’t it a little unusual ? Why — ” 

“ Well, John,” smiled the wife, “ I might do what mother 
did : turn the young man over to father! ” Barclay 
laughed, and she went on patiently: “ It’s not at all un¬ 
usual, John, even if they do— that is, if they are— you 
know ; but they aren’t, and Jennie is too much in love 
with her work at school to quit that. But after all it’s the 
American way ; it was the way we did, dear, and the way 
our mothers and fathers did, and unless you wish to change 
it — to Europeanize it, and pick — ” 

“Ah, nonsense, Jane—-of course I don’t want that! 
Only I thought some way, if it’s serious she ought to — 
Oh, don’t you know she ought to — ” 

Mrs. Barclay broke her smile with, “ Of course she 
ought to, dear, and so ought I and so ought mother when 
she married father and so ought my grandmother when 
she married grandpa — but did we ? Dear, don’t you see 
the child doesn’t realize it? If it is anything, it is growing 
in her heart, and I wouldn't smudge it for the world, by 
speaking to her now— unless you don’t like Neal ; unless 
you think he’s too — unless you w T ant a different boy. I 
mean some one of consequence ? ” 

“Oh, no, it isn’t that, Jane — it isn’t that. Neal’s 
all right; he’s clean and he is honest—I asked Bob 
Hendricks about him to-day, when, we passed the boy 
chasing news for the Banner , and Bob gives him a fine 
name.” Barclay threw himself into a chair and sighed. 
“ I suppose it’s just that I feel Jeanette’s kind of leaving 
us out of it — that is all.” 

Jane went to him ancf patted his head gently, as she 
spoke: “That is nature, dear — the fawn hiding in the 
woods; we must trust to Jennie’s good sense, and the 
good blood in Neal. My, but his sisters are proud of 
him! Last w r eek Lizzie was telling me Neal’s w r ages had 
been increased to ten dollars a week — and I don’t suppose 


312 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


their father in all of his life ever had that much of a steady 
income. The things the family is planning to do with that 
ten dollars a week brought tears of joy to my eyes. Neal's 
going to have his mother-in-law on his side, anyway — just 
as you had yours. I know now how mother felt.” 

But John Barclay did not know how mother felt, and 
he did not care. He knew how father felt — how Lycur- 
gus Mason felt, and how the father of Mrs. Lycurgus 
Mason felt; he felt hurt and slighted, and he could not 
repress a feeling of bitterness toward the youth. All the 
world loves a daughter-in-law, but a father’s love for a 
son-in-law is an acquired taste; some men never get it. 
And John Barclay was called away the next morning to 
throttle a mill in the San Joaquin Valley, and from there 
he went to North Dakota to stop the building of a com¬ 
petitive railroad that tapped his territory ; so September 
came, and with it Jeanette Barclay went back to school. 
The mother wondered what the girl would do with 
her last night at home. She was clearly nervous and 
unsettled all the afternoon before, and made an errand 
into town and came back with a perturbed face. But 
after dinner the mother heard Jeanette at the telephone, 
and this is the one-sided dialogue the mother caught: 
“Yes — this is Miss Barclay.” “Oh, yes, I didn’t recog¬ 
nize your voice at first.” “What meeting?” “Yes — 
yes.” “ And they are not going to have it? ” “ Oh, I see.” 
“ Yor, were — oh, I don't know. Of course I should have 
felt well, I — oh, it would have been all right with me. 
Of course.” Then the voice cheered up and she said: 
“ Why, of course — come right out. I understand.” A 
pause and then, “Yes, I know a man has to go where he 
is called.'’ “Oh, she’ll understand — you know father is 
always on the wing.” “No — why, no, of course not — 
mother wouldn’t think that of you. I’ll tell her how it 
was.” “All right, good-by — yes, right away.” And 
Jeanette Barclay skipped away from the telephone and 
ran to her mother to say, “Mother, that was Neal Ward 
— he wants to come out, and he was afraid you’d think it 
rude for him to ask that way, but you know he had a 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


313 


meeting to report and thought he couldn’t come, and now 
they’ve postponed the meeting, and I told him to come 
right out — wasn’t that all right?” 

And so out came Neal Ward, a likely-looking young 
man of twenty-one ot maybe twenty-two — a good six 
feet in height, with a straight leg, a square shoulder, and 
firm jaw, set like his father’s, and clean brown eyes that 
did not blink. And as Jeanette Barclay, with her mother’s 
height, and her father’s quick keen features, and her Grand¬ 
mother Barclay’s eyes and dominant figure, stood beside 
him in the doorway, Mrs. Jane Barclay thought a good 
way ahead, and Jeanette would have blushed her face to 
a cinder if the mother had spoken her thoughts. The three, 
mother and daughter and handsome young man, sat for a 
while together in the living room, and then Jane, who 
knew the heart of youth, and did not fear it, said, 44 You 
children should go out on the porch—it’s a beautiful night; • 
I’m going upstairs.” 

And now let us once more in our astral bodies watch 
them there in the light of the veiled moon — for it is the 
last time that even we should see them alone. She is sit¬ 
ting on a balustrade, and he is standing beside her, and their 
hands are close together on the stones. “ Yes,” he is say¬ 
ing, 44 I shall be busy at the train to-morrow trying to catch 
the governor for an interview on the railroad question, 
and may not see you.” 

44 1 wish you would throw the governor into the deep 
blue sea,” she says, and he responds: — 

44 1 wish I could.” There is a silence, and then he risks 
it — and the thing he has been trying to say comes out, 

44 1 wonder if you will do something for me, Jeanette? ” 

44 Oh, I don’t know — don’t ask me anything hard — not 
very hard, Neal !” 

The last word was all he cared for, and by what sleight 
of hand he slipped his fraternity pin from his vest into 
her hand, neither ever knew. 

44 Will you ?” he asks. 44 For me ? ” 

She pins it at her throat, and smiles. Then she says, 

14 Is this long enough — do you want it back now ? ” 


314 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


He shakes his head, and finally she asks, 44 When ? * 
and then it comes out: — 

“ Never.” 

And her face reddens, and she does not speak. Their 
hands, on the wall, have met — they just touch, that is all, but 
they do not hasten apart. A long, long time they are 
silent — an eternity of a minute; and then she says, “We 
shall see in the morning.” 

And then another eternal minute rolls by, and the youth 
slips the rose from her hair — quickly, and without disar¬ 
ranging a strand. 

“ Oh,” she cries, 44 Neal! ” and then adds, 44 Let me get 
you a pretty one — that is faded.” 

But no, he will have that one, and she stands beside 
him and pins it on his coat — stands close beside him, 
and where her elbows and her arms touch him he is 
• thrilled with delight. In the shadow of the great porch 
they stand a moment, and her hand goes out to his. 

44 Well, Jeanette,” he says, and still her hand does not 
shrink away, 44 well, Jeanette — it will be lonesome when 
you go.” 

44 Will it ? ” she asks. 

44 Yes — but I — I have been so happy to-night.” 

He presses her hand a little closer, and as she says, 44 I’m 
so glad,” he says, 44 Good-by,” and moves down the broad 
stone steps. She stands watching him, and at the bottom 
he stops and again says: — 

44 Well — good-by — Jeanette — I must go — I sup¬ 
pose.” And she does not move, so again he says, 44 Good- 
by.” 

44 Youth,” said Colonel Martin Culpepper to the assem¬ 
bled company in the ballroom of the Barclay home as 
the clock struck twelve and brought in the twentieth 
century ; 44 Youth,” he repeated, as he tugged at the bot¬ 
tom of Buchanan Culpepper’s white silk vest, to be sure 
that it met his own black trousers, and waved his free 
hand grandly aloft; 44 Youth,” he reiterated, as he looked 
over the gay young company at the foot of the hall, 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


315 


while the fiddlers paused with their hows in the air, 
and the din of the New Year’s clang was rising in the town; 
“ Youth, — of all the things in God’s good green earth, — 
Youth is the most beautiful.” Then he signalled with 
some dignity to the leader of the orchestra, and the music 
began. 

It was a memorable New Year’s party that Jeanette 
Barclay gave at the dawn of this century. The Barclay 
private car had brought a dozen girls down from the state 
university for the Christmas holidays, and then had made 
a recruiting trip as far east as Cleveland and had brought 
back a score more of girls in their teens and early twenties 
— for an invitation from the Barclays, if not of much social 
consequence, had a power behind it that every father rec¬ 
ognized. And what with threescore girls from the Ridge, 
and young men from half a dozen neighbouring states, —■ 
and young men are merely background in any social pic¬ 
ture, — the ballroom was as pretty as a garden. It was 
her own idea, — with perhaps a shade of suggestion from 
her father, — that the old century should be danced out 
and the new one danced in with the pioneers of Garrison 
County set in quadrilles in the centre of the floor, while 
the young people whirled around them in the two-step 
then in vogue. So the Barclays asked a score or so of the 
old people in for dinner New Year’s Eve; and they kept 
below stairs until midnight. Then they filed into the 
ballroom, with its fair fresh faces, its shrill treble note 
of merriment, — these old men and women, gray and faded, 
looking back on the old century while the others looked 
into the new one. There came Mr. and Mrs. Watts Mc- 
Hurdie in the lead, Watts in his best brown suit, and Mrs. 
Watts in lavender to sustain her gray hair; General 
Ward, in his straight black frock coat and white tie, fol¬ 
lowed with Mrs. Dorman, relict of the late William 
Dorman, merchant, on his arm; behind him came the 
Brownwells, in evening clothes, and Robert Hendricks 
and his sister, — all gray-haired, but straight of figure and 
firm of foot; Colonel Culpepper followed with Mrs. Mary 
Barclay; the Lycurgus Masons were next in the file, and 


316 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


in their evening clothes they looked withered and old, 
and Lycurgus was not sure upon his feet; Jacob Dolan in 
his faded blue uniform marched in like a drum-major with 
the eldest Miss Ward; and the Carnines followed, and 
the Fernalds followed them; and then came Judge and 
Mrs. Bemis — he a gaunt, sinister, parchment-skinned man, 
with white hair and a gray mustache, and she a crumbling 
ruin in shiny satin bedecked in diamonds. Down the 
length of the long room they walked, and executed an 
old-fashioned grand march, such as Watts could lead, 
while the orchestra played the tune that brought cheers 
from the company, and the little old man looked at the 
floor, while Mrs. McIIurdie beamed and bowed and smiled. 
And then they took their partners to step off the quadrille 
— when behold, it transpired that in all the city orchestra, 
that had cost the Barclays a thousand dollars according to 
town tradition, not one man could be found who could 
call off a quadrille. Then up spake John Barcla} r , and 
stood him on a chair, and there, when the colonel had sig¬ 
nalled for the music to start, the voice of John Barclay 
rang out above the din, as it had not sounded before in 
nearly thirty years. Old memories came rushing back to 
him of the nights when he used to ride five and ten and 
twenty miles and play the cabinet organ to a fiddle’s lead, 
and call off until daybreak for two dollars. And such a 
quadrille as he gave them — four figures of it before he 
sent them to their seats. There were “cheat or swing,” 
the “crow’s nest,” “ skip to my Loo,”—and they all broke 
out singing, while the young people clapped their hands, 
and finally by a series of promptings he quickly called the 
men into one line and the women into another, and then 
the music suddenly changed to the Virginia reel. And so 
the dance closed for the old people, and they vanished from 
the room, looking back at the youth and the happiness 
and warmth of the place with wistful but not eager eyes; 
and as Jacob Dolan, in his faded blues and grizzled 
hair and beard, disappeared into the dusk of the hall¬ 
way, Jeanette Barclay, looking at her new ring, patted it 
and said to Neal Ward: “Well, dear, the nineteenth 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


317 


century is gone ! Now let us dance and be happy in this 
one.” 

And so she danced the new year and the new century 
and the new life in, as happy as a girl of twenty can be. 
For was she not a Junior at the state university, if you 
please ? Was she not the heir of all the ages, and a scan¬ 
dalous lot of millions besides, and what is infinitely more 
important to a girl’s happiness, was she not engaged, good 
and tight, and proud of it, to a youth making twelve dol¬ 
lars every week whether it rained or not ? What more 
could an honest girl ask ? And it was all settled, and sc 
happily settled too, that when she had graduated with her 
class at the university, and had spent a year in Europe — 
but that was a long way ahead, and Neal had to go to the 
City with father and learn the business first. But busi¬ 
ness and graduation and Europe were mere details — the 
important thing had happened. So when it was all over 
that night, and the girls had giggled themselves to bed, 
and the house was dark, Jeanette Barclay and her mother 
walked up the stairs to her room together. There they 
sat down, and Jeanette began — 

“ Neal said he told you about the ring? ” 

“ Yes,” answered her mother. 

“ But he did not show it to you — because he wanted 
me to be the first to see it.” 

“Neal’s a dear,” replied her mother. “So that was 
why ? I thought perhaps he was bashful.” 

“No, mother,” answered the girl, “no — we’re both so 
proud of it.” She kept her hand over the ring finger, as 
she spoke, “You know those 4 Short and Simple Annals ’ 
he’s been doing for the Star — well, he got his first check 
the day before Christmas, and he gave half of it to his 
father, and took the other twenty-five dollars and bought 
this ring. I think it is so pretty, and we are both real 
proud of it.” And then she took her hand from the ring, 
and held her finger out for her mother’s eyes, and her 
mother kissed it. They were silent a moment; then the 
girl rose and stood with her hand on the door-knob and 
cried: “ I think it is the prettiest ring in all the world, 


318 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and I never want any other.” Then she thought ol 
another, and flushed and ran away. 

And we should not follow her. Rather let us climb 
Main Street and turn into Lincoln Avenue and enter the 
room where Martin Culpepper sits writing the Biography 
of Watts McHurdie. He is at work on his famous chap¬ 
ter, “ Hymen’s Altar,” and we may look over his great 
shoulder and see what he has written: “ The soul caged 
in its prison house of the flesh looks forth,” he writes, 
“ and sees other chained souls, and hails them in passing 
like distant ships. But soul only meets soul in some 
great passion of giving, whether it be man to his fellow- 
man, to his God, or in the love of men and women ; it mat¬ 
ters not how the ecstasy comes, its root is in sacrifice, in 
giving, in forgetting self and merging through abnegation 
into the source of life in this universe for one sublime 
moment. For we may not come out of our prison houses 
save to inhale the air of heaven once or twice, and then 
go scourged back to our dungeons. Great souls are they 
who love the most, who breathe the deepest of heaven’s 
air, and give of themselves most freely.” 


CHAPTER XXIIX 


The next morning, before the guests were downstairs, 
Barclay, reading his morning papers before the fireplace, 
stopped his daughter, who was going through the living 
room on some morning errand. 

“Jeanette,” said the father, as he drew her to his chair 
arm, “let me see it.” 

She brought the setting around to the outside of her 
finger, and gave him her hand. He looked at it a mo¬ 
ment, patted her hand, put the ring to his lips, and the 
two sat silent, choked with something of joy and some¬ 
thing of sorrow that shone through their brimming eyes. 
Thus Mary Barclay found them. They looked up abashed, 
and she bent over them and stroked her son’s hair as she 
said : — 

“John, John, isn’t it fine that Jennie has escaped the 
curse of your millions?” 

Barclay’s heart Avas melted. He could not answer, so 
he nodded an assenting head. The mother stooped to 
kiss her son’s forehead, as she went on, “Not with all 
of your millions could you buy that simple little ring for 
Jennie, John.” And the father pressed his lips to the 
ring, and his daughter snuggled tightly into his heart 
and the three mingled their joy together. 

Two hours later Barclay and General Ward met on the 
bridge by the mill. It was one of those warm midwinter 
days, when nature seems to be listening for the coming of 
spring. A red bird was calling in the woods near by, and 
the soft south wind had spring in it as it blew across the 
veil of waters that hid the dam. John Barclay’s head 
was full of music, and he was lounging across the bridge 
from the mill on his way home to try his new pipe organ. 
He had spent four hours the day before at his organ bench, 

319 


320 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


trying to teach his lame foot to keep up with his strong 
foot. So when General Ward overhauled him, Barclay 
was annoyed. He was not the man to have his purposes 
crossed, even when they were whims. 

“ I was just coming over to the mill to see you,” said 
the general, as he halted in Barclay’s path. 

“ All right, General — all right ; what can I do for 
you ? ” 

The general was as blunt a man as John Barclay. If 
Barclay desired no beating around the bush, the general 
would go the heart of matters. So he said, “ I want to 
talk about Neal with you.” 

Barclay knew that certain things must be said, and the 
two men sat in a stone seat in the bridge wall, with the 
sun upon them, to talk it out then and there. “Well, 
General, we like Neal — we like him thoroughly. And 
we are glad, Jane and I, and my mother too — she likes 
him ; and I want to do something for him. That’s about 
all there is to say.” 

-* Y es, but what, John Barclay — what ? ” exclaimed the 
general. “That’s what I want to know. What are you 
going to do for him ? Make him a devil worshipper ? ” 

“ Well now, General, here — don’t be too fast,” Barclay 
smiled and drawled. lie put his hands on the warm 
rocks at his sides and flapped them like wing-tips as he 
went on: “Jeanette and Neal have their own lives to 
live. They’re sensible — unusually sensible. We didn’t 
steal Neal, any more than you stole Jeanette, General, 
and—•” 

“Oh, I understand that, John; that isn't the point,” 
broke in the general. “ But now that you’ve got him, 
what are you goingto do with him ? Can’t you see, John, 
he’s my boy, and that I have a right to know? ” 

“Now, General, will you let me do a little of this talk¬ 
ing?” asked Barclay, impatiently. “As I was saying, 
Jeanette and Neal are sensible, and money isn’t going to 
make fools of them. When the time comes and I’m gone, 
they’ll take the divine responsibility — ” 

“The divine tommyrotl” cried the general; “the divine 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


321 


fiddlesticks! Why should they ? What have they done 
that they should have that thrust upon them like a curse; 
in God’s name, John Barclay, why should my Neal have to 
have that blot upon his soul ? Can’t they be free and in* 
dependent ? ” 

Barclay did not answer; he looked glumly at the floor, 
and kicked the cement with Ins heel. fct What would you 
have them do with the money when they get it,” he 
growled, 44 burn it ? ” 

“ Why not ? ” snapped the general. 

“Oh — I just thought I’d ask,” responded Barclay. 

The two men sat in silence. Barclay regarded conver- 
sation with the general in that mood as arguing with a 
lunatic. Presently he rose, and stood before Wai^ and 
spoke rather harshly : 44 What I am going to do is this — 

and nothing more. Neal tells me he understands short¬ 
hand : I know the boy is industrious, and I know that he 
is bright and quick and honest. That’s all he needs. I 
am going to take him into our company as a stockholder — 
with one share — a thousand-dollar share, to be explicit; 
I’m going to give that to him, and that’s all; then lie’s to 
be my private secretary for three years at five thousand a 
year, so long as you must know, and then at the end of 
that time, if he and Jennie are so minded, they’re going 
to marry; and if he has any business sense —of course 
you know what will happen. She is all we have, Gen¬ 
eral— some one’s got to take hold of things.” 

As Barclay spoke General Ward grew white —-his face 
was aquiver as his trembling voice cried out: 44 Oh, God, 
John Barclay, and would you take my boy—my clean- 
hearted, fine-souled boy, whom I have taught to fear God, 
and callous his soul with your damned money-making? 
How would you like me to take your girl and blacken 
her heart and teach her the wiles of the outcasts ? And 
yet you’re going to teach Neal to lie and steal and cheat 
and make his moral guide the penal code instead of his 
father’s faith. Shame on you, John Barclay — shame on 
you, and may God damn you for this thing, John Bar¬ 
clay I ” The old man trembled, but the sob that shook 


322 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


his frame had no tears in it. He looked Barclay in tha 
eyes without a tremor for an angry moment, and then 
broke: “I am an old man, John ; I can’t interfere with 
Neal and Jeanette; it’s their life, not mine, and some way 
God will work it out; but,” he added, “ I’ve still got my 
own heart to break over it — that’s mine — that’s mine.” 

He rose and faced the younger man a moment, and then 
walked quickly away. Barclay limped after him, and 
went home. There lie sat on his bench and made the 
great organ scream and howl and bellow with rage for 
two hours. 

When Neal Ward went to the City to live, he had a reve¬ 
lation of John Barclay as a man of moods. The Barclay 
Neal Ward saw was an electric motor rather than an 
engine. The power he had to perceive and to act seemed 
transmitted to him from the outside. At times he dictated 
letters of momentous importance to the young man, which 
Neal was sure were improvised. Barclay relied on his 
instincts and rarely changed a decision. He wore himself 
out every day, yet he returned to his work the next day 
without a sign of fag. The young man found that Bar¬ 
clay had one curious vanity—he liked to seem composed. 
Hence the big smooth mahogany table before him, with 
the single paper tablet on it, and the rose — the one rose 
in the green vase in the centre of the table. Visitors 
always found him thus accoutred. But to see him limp¬ 
ing about from room to room, giving orders in the great 
offices, dictating notes for the heads of the various depart¬ 
ments, to see him in the room where the mail was received, 
worrying it like a pup, was to see another man revealed. 
He liked to have people from Sycamore Ridge call upon 
him, and the man who kept door in the outer office — a 
fine gray- haired person, who had the manners of a brigadier 
— knew so many people in Sycamore Ridge that Neal used 
to call him the City Directory. One day Molly Brown- 
well called. She was the only person who ever quelled 
the brigadier; but when a woman lias been a social leader 
in a country town all of her life, she has a social poise that 
may not be impressed by a mere brigadier. Mrs. Brown 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


323 


well realized that her call was unusual, but she refused to 
acknowledge it to him. Barclay seemed glad to see her, 
and as he was in one of his mellow moods he talked of old 
times, and drew from a desk near the wall, which he rarely 
opened, an envelope containing a tintype picture of Ellen 
Culpepper. He showed it to her sister, and they both sat 
silent for a time, and then the woman spoke. 

“Well, John,” she said, “that was a long time ago.” 

“Forty years, Molly— forty years.” 

When they came back to the world she said: “ John, I 
am up here looking for a publisher. Father has written 
a Biography of Watts, and collected all of his poems and 
things in it, and we thought it might sell-—Watts is so 
well known. But the publishers won’t take it. I want 
your advice about it.” 

Barclay listened to her story, and then wheeled in his 
chair and exclaimed, “Can Adrian publish that book? ” 

“Yes,” she answered tentatively; “that is, he could 
if it didn’t take such an awful lot of money.” 

After discussing details with her, Barclay called Neal 
Ward and said : — 

“ Get up a letter to Adrian Brownwell asking him to 
print for me three thousand copies of the colonel’s book, 
at one dollar and fifty cents a copy, and give seventy-five 
per cent of the profits to Colonel Culpepper. We’ll put 
that book in every public library in this country. How’s 
that ? ” And he looked at the tintype and said, “ Bless 
her dear little heart.” 

“ Neal,” asked Barclay, as Mrs. Brownwell left the room, 
“ how old are you ? I keep forgetting.” When the young 
man answered twenty-five, Barclay, who was putting away 
the tintype picture, said, “ And Jeanette will be twenty- 
three at her next birthday.” He closed the desk and 
looked at the youth bending over his typewriter and 
sighed. “ Been going together off and on five or six years 
— I should say.” 

Neal nodded. Barclay put his hand on his chin and 
contemplated the young man a moment. “ Ever have 
any other love affair, son ? ” 


324 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


The youngster coloured and looked up quickly with a 
puzzled look and did not reply. 

Barclay cut in with, “ Well, son, I’m glad to find you 
don’t lie easily.” He laughed silently. “Jennie has — 
lots of them. When she was six she used to cry for little 
Watts Fernald, and they quarrelled like cats and dogs, 
and when she was ten there was an Irish boy — Finnegan 
I think his name was — who milked the cow, whom she 
adored, and when she was fourteen or so, it was some boy 
in the high school who gave her candy until her mother 
had to shoo him off, and I don’t know how many others.” 
He paused for a few seconds and then went on, “ But 
she’s forgotten them — that’s the way of women.” His 
eyes danced merrily as he continued, while he scratched 
his head: “ But with us men—it’s different. We never 
forget.” He chuckled a moment, and then his face 
changed as he said, “ Neal, I wish you’d go into the mail 
room and see if the noon mail has anything in it from 
that damn scoundrel who’s trying to start a cracker 
factory in St. Louis — I hate to bother to smash him 
right now when we’re so busy.” 

But it so happened that the damn scoundrel thought 
better of his intention and took fifty thousand for his 
first thought, and Neal Ward, being one of the component 
parts of an engaged couple, went ahead being sensible 
about it. All engaged couples, of course, resolve to be 
sensible about it. And for two years and a half — dur¬ 
ing nineteen one and two and part of nineteen three — 
Jeanette Barclay and Neal Ward had tried earnestly and 
succeeded admirably (they believed) in being exceedingly 
sensible about everything. Jeanette had gone through 
school and was spending the year in Europe with her 
mother, and she would be home in May; and in June — 
in June of 1904 — why, the almanac stopped there; the 
world had no further interest, and no one on earth could 
imagine anything after that. For then they proposed not 
to be sensible any longer. 

In the early years of this century — about 1902, prob- 
ably—-John Barclay paid an accounting company twenty- 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


325 


five thousand dollars — more money than General Ward 
and Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and Jacob 
Dolan had saved in all their long, industrious, frugal, and 
useful lives — to go over his business, install a system of 
audits md accounts, and tell him just how much money 
he was >rth. After a score of men had been working 
for six months, the accounting company made its report. 
It was put in terms of dollars and cents, which are fleeting 
and illusive terms, and mean much in one country and 
little in another, signify great wealth at one time and 
mere affluence in another period. So the sum need not 
be set down here. But certain interesting details of the 
report may be set down to illuminate this narrative. For 
instance, it indicates that John Barclay was a man of some 
coUsequence, when one knows that he employed more men 
in that year than many a sovereign state of this Union 
employed in its state and county and city governments. 
It signifies something to learn that he controlled more 
land growing wheat than any of half a dozen European 
kings reign over. It means something to realize that in 
those years of his high tide John Barclay, by a few lines 
dictated to Neal Ward, could have put bread out of the 
reach of millions of his fellow-creatures. And these are 
evidences of material power — these men he hired, these 
lands he dominated, and this vast store of food that he 
kept. So it is fair to assume that if this is a material 
world, John Barclay’s fortune was founded upon a rock. 
He and his National Provisions Company were real. They 
were able to make laws; they were able to create admin¬ 
istrators of the law; and they were able to influence those 
who interpreted the law. Barclay and his power were 
substantial, palpable, and translatable into terms of money, 
of power, of vital force. 

And then one day, after long years of growth in the 
underconsciousnesses of men, an idea came into full bloom 
in the world. It had no especial champions. The people 
began to think this idea. That was all. Now life reduced 
to its lowest terms consists of you and him and me. Put us 
on a desert island together—you and him and me —and he 


326 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


can do nothing without you and me — except he kill us, and 
then he is alone; even then we haunt him, so our influence 
still binds him. You can do nothing without him and me, 
and I can do nothing without you and him. Not that you 
and he will hold me; not that you will stop me; but what 
you think and say will bind me to your wishes tighter than 
any chains }"ou might forge. What you and he think is 
more powerful than all the material forces of this universe. 
For what you and he think is public opinion. It is not 
substantial; it is not palpable. It may not readily be trans¬ 
lated into terms of money, or power, or vital force. Rut 
it crushes all these things before it. When this public 
opinion rises sure and firm and strong, no material force on 
this earth can stop it. For a time it may be dammed and 
checked. For a day or a week or a year or a decade it 
may be turned from its channel; yet money cannot hold it; 
arms cannot hold it; cunning cannot baffle it. For it is 
God moving among men. Thus He manifests Himself in 
this earth. Through the centuries, amid the storm and 
stress of time, often muffled, often strangled, often inco¬ 
herent, often raucous and inarticulate with anguish, but 
always in the end triumphant, the voice of the people is 
indeed the voice of God! 

Nearly a dozen years had passed since the Russian painted 
the picture of John Barclay, which hangs in the public 
library of Sycamore Ridge, and in that time the heart of 
the American people had changed. Barclay was begin¬ 
ning to feel upon him, night and day, the crushing weight 
of popular scorn. He called the idea envy, but it was not 
envy. It was the idea working in the world, and the 
weight of the scorn was beginning to crumple his soul; 
for this idea that the people were thinking was finding its 
way into newspapers, magazines, and books. They were 
•beginning to question the divine right of wealth to rule, 
because it was wealth — an idea that Barclay could not 
comprehend even vaguely. The term honest wealth, which 
was creeping into respectable periodicals, was exceedingly 
annoying to him. For the very presence of the term 
seemed to indicate that there was such a thing as dis* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


327 


honest wealth, — an obvious absurdity; and when he ad¬ 
dressed the students of the Southwestern University at 
their commencement exercises in 1902, his address at¬ 
tracted considerable attention because it deplored the 
modern tendency in high places toward socialism and 
warned the students that a nation of iconoclasts would 
perish from the earth. „ But the people went on question¬ 
ing the divine right of wealth to rule. In the early part 
of 1903 Barclay was astounded at the action of a score 
of his senators and nearly a hundred of his congressmen, 
who voted for a national law prohibiting the giving of rail¬ 
road rebates. He was assured by all of them that it was 
done to satisfy temporary agitation, but the fact that they 
voted for the law at all, as he explained to Senator Myton, 
at some length and with some asperity, was a breach of 
faith with 44 interests in American politics which may not 
safely be ignored.” 44 And what’s more,” he added angsily, 
44 this is a personal insult to me. That law hits my Door 
Strip.” 

And then out of the clear sky like a thunderbolt, not 
from an enemy, not from any clique or crowd he had 
fought, but from the government itself, during the last 
days of Congress came a law creating a Department of 
Commerce and Labour at Washington, a law giving federal 
inspectors the right to go through books of private con¬ 
cerns. Barclay was overwhelmed with amazement. He 
raged, but to no avail; and his wrath was heated by the 
rumours printed in all the newspapers that Barclay and the 
National Provisions Company were to be the first victims 
of the new law. Mrs. Barclay and Jeanette were going 
to Europe in the spring of 1903, and Barclay on the whole 
was glad of it. He wished the decks cleared for his fight; 
he felt that he must not have Jane at his elbow holding 
his hand from malice in the engagement that was coming* 
and when he left them on the boat, he spent a week scur * 
rying through the East looking for some unknown enemy 
in high financial circles who might be back of the govern¬ 
ment’s determination to move against the N.P.C. He 
felt sure he could uncover the source of his trouble — and 


328 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


then, either fight his enemy or make terms. It did not 
occur to Barclay that he could not find a material, palpa¬ 
ble, personal object upon which to charge or with which to 
capitulate. But he found nothing, and crossed the Alle- 
ghanies puzzled. 

When he got home, he learned that a government in¬ 
spector, one H. S. Smith, was beginning the investigation 
of the Provisions Company’s books in St. Paul, Omaha, 
Chicago, and Denver. Barclay learned that Smith had 
secured some bills of lading that might not easily be ex¬ 
plained. Incidentally, Barclay learned that an attempt 
had been made, through proper channels, to buy Smith, 
and he was nonplussed to learn that Smith was not pur¬ 
chasable. Then to end the whole matter, Barclay wrote 
to Senator Myton, directing him to have Smith removed 
immediately. But My ton’s reply, which was forwarded to 
Barclay at Sycamore Ridge, indicated that “the orders 
under which Smith is working come from a higher source 
than the department.” 

Barclay’s scorn of Inspector Smith—a man whom he 
could buy and sell a dozen times from one day’s income 
from his wealth — flamed into a passion. He tore My ton’s 
letter to bits, and refreshed his faith in the god of Things 
As They Are by garroting a mill in Texas. While the 
Texas miller was squirming, Barclay did not consider In¬ 
spector Smith consciously, but in remote places in his mind 
always there lived the scorned person whom Barclay knew 
was working against him. 

From time to time in the early summer the newspapers 
contained definite statements, authorized from Washington 
with increasing positiveness, that the cordon around the 
N.P.C. was tightening. In July Barclay’s scorn of In¬ 
spector Smith grew into disquietude ; for a letter from Judge 
Bemis, of the federal court, — written up in the Catskills, 
— warned him that scorn was not the only emotion with 
which he should honour Smith. After reading Bemis’ con¬ 
fidential and ambiguous scrawl, Barclay drummed for a 
time with his hard fingers on the mahogany before him, 
stared at the print sketches of machinery above him, and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


329 


paced the floor of his office with the roar of the mill an¬ 
swering something in his angry heart. He could not know 
that the tide was running out. He went to his telephone 
and asked for a city so far away that when he had finished 
talking for ten minutes, he had spent enough money to keep 
General Ward in comfort for a month. Neal Ward, sitting 
in his room, heard Barclay say : “What kind of a damn bunco 
game were you fellows putting up on me in 1900 ? You got 
my money; that’s all right; I didn’t squeal at the assess¬ 
ment, did I ? ” Young Ward in the pause closed his door. 
But the bull-like roar of Barclay came through the wood 
between them in a moment, and he heard : “ Matter enough 
— here’s this fellow Smith bullying my 'clerks out in 
Omaha, and nosing around the St. Paul office ; what right 
has he got? Who is he, anyway — who got him his job ? 
I wrote to Myton to get him removed, or sent to some other 
work, and Myton said that the White House was back of 
him. I wish you’d go over to Washington, and tell them 
who I am and what we did for you in ’96 and 1900 ; we 
can’t stand this. It’s a damned outrage, and I look to you 
to stop it” In a moment Ward heard Barclay exclaim: 
“ You can’t — why, that’s a hell of a note ! What kind of 
a fellow is he, anyway ? Tell him I gave half a million to 
the party, and I’ve got some rights in this government that 
a white man is bound to respect — or does he believe in 
taking your money and letting you whistle?” A train 
rolling by the mill drowned Barclay’s voice, but at the end 
of the conversation Ward heard Barclay say: “Well, 
what’s a party good for if it doesn’t protect the men who 
contribute to its support? You simply must do it. I 
look to you for it. You got my good money, and it’s up 
to you to get results.” 

There was some growling, and then Barclay hung up 
the receiver. But he was mad all day, and dictated a 
panic interview to Ward, which Ward was to give to the 
Associated Press when they went to Chicago the next 
day. In the interview, Barclay said that economic con¬ 
ditions were being disturbed by half-baked politicians, 
and that values would shrink and the worst panic in the 


330 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


history of the country would follow unless the socialistic 
meddling with business was stopped. 

The summer had deepened to its maturest splendour 
before Barclay acknowledged to himself his dread of the 
City. For he began to feel a definite discomfiture at the 
panorama of his pictures on the news-stands in connec¬ 
tion with the advertising of the Sunday newspapers and 
magazines. The newspapers were blazoning to the whole 
country that the Economy Door Strip was a blind for tak¬ 
ing railroad rebates, and everywhere he met the report 
of Inspector Smith that the National Provisions Com¬ 
pany’s fifty-pound sack of Barclay’s Best contained but 
forty-eight pounds and ten ounces ; also that Barclay had 
been taking three ounces out of the pound cartons of 
breakfast food, and that the cracker packages were grow¬ 
ing smaller, while the prices were not lowered. Even in 
Sycamore Ridge the reporters appeared with exasperat¬ 
ing regularity, and the papers were filled with diverting 
articles telling of the Barclays’ social simplicity and re¬ 
hashing old stories of John Barclay’s boyhood. His 
attempt to stop the investigation of the National Pro¬ 
visions Company became noised around Washington, and 
the news of his failure was frankly given out from the 
White House. This inspired a cartoon from McCutch- 
eon in the Chicago Tribune , representing the President 
weighing a flour sack on which was printed “ Barclay’s 
Worst,” with Barclay behind the President trying to get 
his foot on the scales. 

All of his life Barclay had been a fighter; he liked to 
hit and dodge or get hit back. His struggles in business 
and in the business part of politics had been with tangi¬ 
ble foes, with material things; and his weapons had been 
material things: coercion, bribery (more or less sugar- 
coated), cheating, and often in these later years the roar 
of his voice or the power of his name. But now, facing 
the formless, impersonal thing called public opinion, 
hitherto unknown in his scheme of things, he was filled 
with uncertainty and indecision. 

One autumn day, after sending three stenographers 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


331 


home limp and weary with directions for his battles, 
Barclay strayed into McHurdie’s shop. The general and 
Dolan were the only members of the parliament present 
that afternoon, besides Watts. Barclay nodded at the 
general without speaking, and Dolan said : — 

“ Cool, ain’t it ? Think it will freeze ?” 

Barclay took a chair, and when Dolan and Ward saw 
that he had come for a visit, they left. 

“Watts,” asked Barclay, after the others had gone, and 
the little man at the bench did not speak, “Watts, what’s 
got into the people of this country? What have I done 
that they should begin pounding me this way?” 

Mctlurdie turned a gentle smile on his visitor, knowing 
that Barclay would do the talking. Barclay went on: 
“Here are five suits in county courts in Texas against me; 
a suit in Kansas by the attorney-general, five or ten in the 
Dakotas, three in Nebraska, one or two in each of the 
Lake states, and the juries always finding against me. I 
haven’t changed my methods. I’m doing just what I’ve 
done for fifteen years. I’ve had lots of lawsuits before, 
with stockholders and rival companies and partners, and 
millers and all that — but this standing in front of the mob 
and fighting them off — why ? Why ? What have I done ? 
These county attorneys and attorneys-general seem to de¬ 
light in it — now why? They didn’t used to; it used to 
be that only cranks like old Phil Ward even talked of 
such things, and people laughed at them •; and now prose¬ 
cuting attorneys actually do these things, and people re¬ 
elect them. Why? What’s got into the people? What 
am I doing that I haven’t been doing?” 

“ Maybe the people are growing honest, John,” sug¬ 
gested the harness maker amiably. 

Barclay threw back his head and roared: “Naw — naw 
— it isn’t that; it’s the damn newspapers. That’s what 
it is! They’re what’s raising the devil. But why ? 
Why ? What have I done ? Why, they have even bull¬ 
dozed some of my own federal judges—my own men, 
Watts, my own men; men whose senators came into my 
office with their hats in their hands and asked permission 


332 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


to name these judges. Now why ?” He was silent awhile 
and then began chuckling: “ But I fixed ’em the other day. 
Did you see that article in all the- papers briefed out 
of New York about how that professor had said that the 
N.P.C. was an economic necessity? I did that, Watts: and 
got it published in the magazines, too — and our advertis¬ 
ing agents made all the newspapers that get our advertising 
print it — and they had to.” Barclay laughed. After a 
moody silence he continued: “ And you know what I could 
do. I could finance a scheme to buy out the meat trust and 
the lumber trust, and I could control every line of advertis¬ 
ing that goes into the damn magazines — and I could buy 
the paper trust too, and that would fix ’em. The Phil 
Wards are not running this country yet. The men who 
make the wealth and maintain the prosperity have got to 
run it in spite of the long-nosed reformers and socialists. 
You know, Watts, that we men who do things have a 
divine responsibility to keep the country off the rocks. 
But she’s drifting a lot just now, and they’re all after me, 
because I’m rich. That’s all, Watts, just because I’ve 
worked hard and earned a little money — that's why.” 
And so he talked on, until he was tired, and limped home 
and sat idly in front of his organ, unable to touch the keys. 

Then he turned toward the City to visit his temporal 
kingdom. There in the great Corn Exchange Building 
his domain was unquestioned. There in the room with 
the mahogany walls he could feel his power, and stanch 
the flow of his courage. There he was a man. But alas 
for human vanity I When he got to the City, he found the 
morning papers full of a story of a baby that had died, 
from overeating breakfast food made at his mills and 
adulterated with earth from his Missouri clay banks, as the 
coroner had attested after an autopsy ; and a miserable 
county prosecutor was looking for John Barclay. So he 
hid all the next day in his offices, and that evening took 
Neal Ward on a special train in his private car, on a round¬ 
about way home to Sycamore Ridge. 

It was a wretched homecoming for so great and success 
ful a man as Barclay. Yet he with all his riches, with 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


333 


all his material power, even he longed for the safety of 
home, as any hunted thing longs for his lair. On the 
way he paced the diagonals of the little office room in his 
car, like a caged jackal. The man had lost his anchor ; 
the things which his life had been built on would not 
hold him. Money — men envied the rich nowadays, he 
said, and the rich man had no rights in the courts or out 
of them ; friends — they had gone up in the market, and 
he could not afford them; politics — he had found it a 
quicksand. So he jabbered to Neal Ward, his secretary, 
and pulled down the curtains of his car on the station side 
of every stop the train made in its long day’s journey. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


It was nearly midnight when the special train pulled 
into Sycamore Ridge, and Neal Ward hurried home. 
He went to his room, and found there a letter and a 
package, both addressed in Jeanette’s handwriting. The 
letter was only a note that read: — 

“ My dearest Boy : I could not wait to send it for your Christ¬ 
mas present. So I am sending it the very day it is finished. I hope 
it will bring me close to you — into your very heart and keep me there. 
I have kissed it — for I knew that you would. 

“ Your loving Jeanette.” 

He tore open the package and found a miniature of 
Jeanette done on ivor;—that seemed to bring her into 
the room, and illumine it with her presence. The thing 
bloomed with life, and his heart bounded with joy as his 
eyes drank the beauty of it. His father called from below 
stairs, and the youth went down holding the note and the 
miniature in his hands. Before the father could speak, 
the son held out the picture, and Philemon Ward looked 
for a moment into the glowing faces — that of the picture 
and that of the living soul before him, and hesitated be¬ 
fore speaking. 

“ I got your wire — ’’ he began. 

“But isn’t it beautiful, father — wonderful ! ” broke in 
the son. 

The father assented kindly and then continued : “ So I 
thought I’d sit up for you. I had to talk with you.” 
The son’s face looked an interrogation, and the father an¬ 
swered, “Read that, Neal — ’ handing his son a letter in 
a rich linen envelope bearing in the corner the indication 
that it was written at the Army and Navy Club in Wash¬ 
ington. The lovely face in the miniature lay on the table 
between them and smiled up impartially at father and sou 
as the young man drew out the letter and read : — 

334 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


335 


“My dear General Ward: This letter will introduce to you 
Mr. H. S. Smith, an inspector from the Bureau of Commerce and 
Labour, who has been working upon evidence connected with the 
National Provisions Company. I happened to be at luncheon this 
afternoon with a man of the highest official authority, whose name it 
would be bad faith to divulge, but whom I know you respect, even 
if you do not always agree with him. I mentioned your name and 
the part you took in the battle of the Wilderness, and my friend was 
at once interested, though, of course, he had known you by name and 
fame for forty years. One w T ord led to another, as is usual in these 
cases, and my friend mentioned the fact that your son, Neal Dow 
Ward, is secretary to John Barclay, and in a position to verify certain 
evidence which the government now has in the N.P.C. matter. I 
happen to know that the government is exceedingly anxious to be 
exactly correct in every charge it makes against this Company, and 
hence I am writing to you. Your son can do a service to his country 
to-day by telling the truth when he is questioned by Inspector Smith, 
to my mind as important as that you did in the Wilderness. In¬ 
spector Smith has a right to question him, and will do so, and I have 
promised my friend here to ask you to counsel with your son, and beg 
him in the name of that good citizenship for which you have always 
stood, and for which you offered your life, to tell the simple truth. 
As a comrade and a patriot, I have no doubt what you will do, know¬ 
ing the facts.” 

Neal Ward put his hand on the table, with the letter 
still in his fingers. “ Father,” he asked blankly, “ do you 
know what that means ? ” 

“ Yes, Neal, I think I understand ; it means that to¬ 
morrow morning will decide whether you are a patriot or 
a perjurer, my boy — a patriot or a perjurer ! ” The gen¬ 
eral, who was in his shirt-sleeves and collarless, rose, and 
putting his hands behind him, backed to the radiator to 
warm them. 

“ But, father — father,” exclaimed the boy, “how can I ? 
What I learned was in confidence. How can I ? ” 

The father saw the anguish in his son’s face, and did 
not reply at once. “ Is it crooked, Neal ? ” 

“Yes,” replied the son, and then added: “ So bad I was 
going to get out of it, as soon as Jeanette came home. I 
couldn’t stand it — for a life, father. But I promised to 
stay three years, and try, and I think I should keep my 
promise.” 

The father and son were silent for a time, and then the 


336 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


father spoke. “And you love her with all your life 
don’t you, Nealie ?” The son was gazing intently at the 
miniature and nodded. At length the father sighed. u My 
poor, poor boy — my poor, poor boy.” He walked to the 
table on which were his books and papers, and then stood 
looking at the girl’s face. “ You couldn’t explain it to 
her, I suppose? ” he asked. 

“ No,” replied the son. “ No; she adores her father ; to 
her he is perfect. And I don’t blame her, for he is good 

— you can’t know how good, to her.” Again they stood 
in silence. The son looked up from the picture and said, 
“ And you know, father, what the world would think of me 

— a spy, an informer — an ingrate ? ” 

The old man did not reply, and the son shook his head 
and his face twitched with the struggle that was in him. 
Suddenly the father walked to the son and cried : “ And 
yet you must, Neal Ward — you must. Is there any con- 
fidence in God’s world so sacred as your duty to mankind ? 
Is there any tie, even that of your wife, so sacred as that 
which binds you to humanity ? I left your mother, my 
sweetheart, and went out to fight, with the chance of 
never seeing her again. I went out and left her for the 
same country that is calling you now, Neal ! ” The boy 
looked up with agony on his face. The father paused a 
moment and then went on: “Your soul is your soul — 
not John Barclay’s, my boy — not Jeanette Barclay’s — 
but yours — yours, Neal, to blight or to cherish, as you 
will.” A moment later he added, “Don’t you see, son — 
don’t you see, Neal?” The son shook his head and 
looked down, and did not answer. The father put his arm 
about the son. “ Boy, boy,” he cried, “boy, you’ve got a 
a man’s load on you now — a man’s load. To-morrow you 
can run away like a coward ; you can dodge and lie like 
a thief, or you can tell the simple truth, as it is asked of 
you, like a man — the simple truth like a man, Neal.” 

“ Yes, I know, father — I see it all — but it is so hard — 
for her sake, father.” 

The old man was silent, while the kitchen clock ticked 
away a minute and then another and a third. Then ho 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


337 


took his arm away from his son, and grasped the boy’s 
hand. u Oh, little boy — little boy,” he cried, u can’t I make 
you see that the same God who has put this trial upon you 
will see you through it, and that if you fail in this trial, 
your soul will be crippled for life, and that no matter what 
you get in return for your soul — you will lose in the bar¬ 
gain ? Can't you see it, Nealie — can’t you see it? All 
my life I have been trying to live that way, and I have 
tried to make you see it — so that you would be ready for 
some trial like this.” 

The son rose, and the two men stood side by side, clasp¬ 
ing hands. The boy suddenly tore himself loose, and 
throwing his hands in the air, wailed, “ Oh, God — it is too 
hard—I can’t, father — I can’t.” 

And with the miniature in his hand he walked from the 
room, and Philemon Ward went to his closet and wrestled 
through the night. At dawn his son sat reading and re¬ 
reading a letter. Finally he pressed another letter to his 
lips, and read his own letter again. It read : — 

“My darling Girl: This is the last letter I shall ever mail to 
you, perhaps. I can imagine no miracle that will bring us together 
again. My duty, as I see it, stands between us. The government 
inspector is going to put me under oath to-morrow—unless I run, 
and I won’t — and question me about your father’s business. What 
I must tell will injure him — maybe ruin him. I am going to tell 
your father what I am going to do before I do it. But by all the faith 
I have been taught in a God — and you know I am not pious, and 
belong to no church—I am forced to do this thing. Oh, Jeanette, 
Jeanette — if I loved you less, I would take you for this life alone and 
sell my soul for you; but I want you for an eternity — and in that 
eternity I want to bring you an unsoiled soul. Good-by — oh, good- 
by. Neal.” 

The next morning when Neal Ward went out of the 
office at the mill, John Barclay sat shivering with wrath 
and horror. Every second stamped him with its indelible 
finger, as a day, or a month, puts its stain on other men. 

Another morning, a week later, as he sat at his desk, a 
telegram from his office manager in the city fluttered in his 
hands. It read : “We are privately advised that you were 
indicted by the federal grand jury last night —though we 


338 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


do not know upon what specific charge — our friend B. 
will advise us later in the day.” 

It was a gray December day, and a thin film of ice 
covered the mill-pond. Barclay looked there and shud¬ 
dered away from the thought that came to him. He was 
alone in the mill. He longed for his wife and daughter, 
and yet when he thought of their home-coming to disgrace, 
lie shook with agony. Over and over again he whispered 
the word “indicted.” The thought of his mother and 
her sorrow broke him down. He locked the door, dropped 
heavily into his chair, and bowed his head on his crossed 
arms. And then — 

What, tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay? — for himself? 
Look back along the record for his life: there are many 
tears charged to his account, but none for his own use. 
Back in the seventies there are tears of Miss Culpepper, 
charged to Mr. Barclay, and one heart-break for General 
Hendricks. Again in the eighties there is sorrow for Mr. 
Robert Hendricks, and more tears for Mrs. Brownwell, 
that was Miss Culpepper—all charged to the account of 
Mr. Barclay; and in the early nineties there are some manly 
tears for Martin F. Culpepper, also charged to Mr. Barclay 
— but none before for his own use. Are they, then, tears 
of repentance? No, not tears for the recording angel, not 
good, man’s size, soul-washing tears of repentance, but 
miserable, dwarf, useless, self-pitying, corroding tears — 
tears of shame and rage, for the proud, God-mocking, man¬ 
cheating, powerful, faithless, arrogant John Barclay, dealer 
in the Larger Good. 

And so with his head upon his arms, and his arms upon 
his desk, — a gray-clad, gray-haired, slightly built, time- 
racked little figure, — John Barclay strained his soul and 
wrenched his body and tried in vain to weep. 


CHAPTER XXV 


Down comes the curtain. Only a minute does John 
Barclay sit there with his head in his arms, and then, while 
you are stretching your legs, or reading your programme, or 
looking over the house to see who may be here, up rises 
John Barclay, and while the stage carpenters are setting 
the new scene, he is behind there telephoning to Chicago, 
to Minneapolis, to Omaha, to Cleveland, to Buffalo, — he 
fairly swamps the girl with expensive long-distance calls, 
— trying to see if there is not some way to stop the filing 
of that indictment. For to him the mere indictment ad¬ 
vertises to mankind that money is not power, and with him 
and with all of his caste and class a confession of weak¬ 
ness is equivalent to a confession of wrong. For where 
might makes right, as it does in his world, weakness spells 
guilt, and with all the people jeering at him, with the 
press saying: “Aha, so they have got Mr. Barclay, have 
they? Well, if all his money and all his power could 
not prevent an indictment, he must be a pretty tough 
customer,” — with the public peering into his private books 
and papers in a lawsuit, confirming as facts all that they 
had read in the newspapers, in short with the gold plating 
of respectability rubbed off his moral brass, he feels the 
crushing weight of the indictment, as he limps up and 
down his room at the mill and frets at the long-distance 
operator for being so slow with his calls. 

But he is behind the scenes now; and so is Neal Ward, 
walking the streets of Chicago, looking for work on a 
newspaper, and finally finding it. And so are Mrs. Jane 
Barclay and Miss Barclay, as they sail away on their ten 
days’ cruise of the Mediterranean. And while the or¬ 
chestra plays and the man in the middle of row A of the 
dress circle edges out of his seat and in again, we cannot 
hear John Barclay sigh when the last telephone call is 

339 


340 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


answered, and he finds that nothing can be done. And 
he is not particularly cheered by the knowledge that the 
Associated Press report that very afternoon is sending all 
over the world the story of the indictment. But late in 
the afternoon Judge Bemis, in whose court the indict¬ 
ment was found, much to his chagrin, upon evidence 
furnished by special counsel sent out from Washington — 
Judge Bemis tells him, as from one old friend to another, 
that the special counsellor isn’t much of a lawyer. The 
pleasant friendly little rip-saw laugh of the judge over the 
telephone nearly a thousand miles away is not distinct 
enough to be heard across the stage even if the carpenters 
were not hammering, and the orchestra screaming, and the 
audience buzzing; but that little laugh of his good friend, 
Judge Bemis, was the sweetest sound John Barclay had 
heard in many a day. It seemed curious that he should 
so associate it, but that little laugh seemed to drown the 
sound of a clicking key in a lock—a large iron lock, that 
had been rattling in his mind since noon. For even in 
the minds of the rich and the great, even in the minds of 
men who fancy they are divinely appointed to parcel out 
to their less daring brethren the good things of this world, 
there is always a child’s horror of the jail. So when Mr. 
Barclay, who was something of a lawyer himself, heard his 
good friend, Judge Bemis, laugh that pleasant little friendly 
laugh behind the scenes, the heart of Mr. Barclay gave a 
little pulse-beat of relief if not of joy. 

But an instant later the blight of the indictment was 
over him again. Hammer away, and scream away, and 
buzz away with all your might, you noises of the play¬ 
house ; let us not hear John Barclay hastening across the 
bridge just before the early winter sunset comes, that he 
may intercept the Index and the Banner in the front yard 
of the Barclay home, before his mother sees them. 
Always heretofore he has been glad to have her read of his 
achievements, in the hope that she would come to approve 
them, and to view things as he saw them—his success 
and his power and his glory. But to-night he hides the 
paper under his gray coat and slips into the house. She 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


341 


and her son sit down to dinner alone. This must be a 
stage dinner they are eating — though it is all behind the 
scenes ; for Mr. Barclay is merely going.through the empty 
form of eating. “No, thank you,” for the roast. “Why, 
Mr. Barclay did not touch his soup ! ” “ Well,” says the 

cook, tasting it critically, “ that’s strange.” And “No, 
thank you” for the salad, and “Not any pie to-night, 
Clara.” “What — none of the mince pie, John? Why, 
I went out in the kitchen and made it for you myself.” 
“Well, a little.” 

Heigh-ho! We sigh, and we drum on our table-cloth 
with our fingers, and we are trying to find some way to 
tell something. We have been a bad boy, maybe — a bad 
little boy, and must own up; that is part of our punish¬ 
ment— the hardest part perhaps, even with the curtain 
down, even with the noise in front, even with the maid 
gone, even when a mother comes and strokes our head, as 
we sit idly at the organ bench, unable to sound a key. 
Shall the curtain go up now ? Shall we sit gawking 
while a boy gropes his way out of a man’s life, back through 
forty years, and puts his head in shame and sorrow against 
a mother’s breast ? How he stumbles and falters and halts, 
as the truth comes out — and it must come out; on the 
whole the best thing there is to say of John Barclay on 
that fateful December day in the year of our Lord 1903 
is that he did not let his mother learn the truth from any 
lips but his. And so it follows naturally, because he was 
brave and kind, that instead of having to strengthen her, 
she sustained him — she in her seventies, he in his fifties. 

“My poor dear child,” she said, “I know—I know. 
But don’t worry, John — don’t worry. I don’t mind. 
Jane won’t mind, I am sure, and I know Jennie will under¬ 
stand. It isn’t what even we who love you think of you, 
John — it is what you are that counts. Oh, Johnnie, 
Johnnie, maybe you could serve your country and human¬ 
ity in jail — by showing the folly and the utter uselessness 
of all this money-getting, just as your father served it by 
dying. I would not mind if it made men see that money 
isn’t the thing — if it made you see it, my boy; if you 


342 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


could come out of a jail with that horrible greed for money 
purged from you — ” 

But no — we will not peep behind the curtain; we will 
not dwell with John Barclay as he walked all night up and 
down the great living room of his home. And see, the 
footlights have winked at the leader of the orchestra, to let 
him know he is playing too long; observe, how quickly 
the music dies down—rather too quickly, for the clatter 
of cast iron is heard on the stage, and the sound of hurried 
footsteps is audible, as of some one moving rapidly about 
behind the curtain. The rattling iron you hear is the stove 
in Watts McHurdie’s shop; they have just set it up, and 
got it red hot; for it is a cold day, that fifteenth day of 
December, 1903, and the footsteps you hear are those of 
the members of the harness shop parliament. 

Ah! There goes the curtain, and there sits Watts 
astraddle of his bench, working with all his might, for he 
has an order to sew sleigh-bells on a breast strap, for some 
festivity or another; and here sits the colonel, and over 
there the general, and on his home-made chair Jacob Dolan 
is tilted back, warming his toes at the stove. They are all 
reading — all except Watts, who is working; on the floor 
are the Chicago and St. Louis evening papers, and the 
Omaha and Kansas City morning papers. And on the 
first pages of all of these papers are pictures of John Bar¬ 
clay. There is John Barclay in the Bee , taken in his 
Omaha office by the Bee's own photographer — a new 
picture of Mr. Barclay, unfamiliar to the readers of most 
newspapers. It shows the little man standing by a desk, 
smiling rather benignly with his sharp bold eyes fixed on 
the camera. There is a line portrait of Mr. Barclay in the 
Times, one of recent date, showing the crow’s-feet about 
the eyes, the vertical wrinkle above the nose, and the 
furtive mouth, hard and naked, and the square mean jaw, 
that every cartoonist of Barclay has emphasized for a 
dozen years. And there are other pictures of Mr. Bar¬ 
clay in the papers on the floor, and the first pages of the 
papers are filled with the news of the Barclay indictment. 
All over this land, and in Europe, the news of that indict" 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


343 


ment caused a sensation. In the Times, there on the floor, 
is an editorial comment upon the indictment of Barclay 
cabled from London, another from Paris, and a third from 
Berlin. It was a big event in the world, an event of more 
than passing note — this sudden standing up of one of the 
richest men of his land, before the front door of a county 
jail. Big business, and little business that apes big busi¬ 
ness, dropped its jaw. The world is not accustomed 
to think of might making wrong, so when a Charles I or 
a Louis XVI or a John Barclay comes to harm, the 
traditions of the world are wrenched. Men say: u How 
can these things be — if might makes right? Here is a 
case where might and right conflict — how about it? 
Jails are for the poor, not for the rich, because the poor 
are wrong and the rich are right, and no just man made 
perfect by a million should be in jail.” 

And so while the members of the parliament in Watts 
McHurdie’s shop read and were disturbed at the strange 
twist of events, the whole world was puzzled with them, 
and in unison with Jacob Dolan, half the world spoke, “ J 
see no difference in poisoning breakfast foods and poison¬ 
ing wells, and it’s no odds to me whether a man pinches a 
few ounces out of my flour sack, or steals my chickens.” 

And the other half of the world was replying with 
Colonel Culpepper, “ Oh, well, Jake, now that’s all right 
for talk; but in the realms of high finance men are often 
forced to be their own judges of right and wrong, and 
circumstances that we do not appreciate, cannot under¬ 
stand, in point of fact, nor comprehend, if I may say so, 
intervene, and make what seems wrong in small trans¬ 
actions, trivial matters and pinch-penny business, seem 
right in the high paths of commerce.” 

The general was too deeply interested in reading what 
purported to be his son’s testimony before Commissioner 
Smith, to break into the discussion at this point, so Dolan 
answered, “ From which I take it that you think that 
Johnnie down at the mill keeps a private God in his pri¬ 
vate car.” 

The colonel was silent for a time; he read a few lines 


344 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and looked into space a moment, and then replied in a 
gentle husky voice : “Jake, what do we know about it? 
The more I think how every man differs from his neighbour, 
and all our sins are the result of individual weakness at the 
end of lonely struggles with lonely temptations — the 
more I think maybe there is something in what you say, 
and that not only John but each of us — each of us under 
this shining sun, sir — keeps his private God.” 

“You’ll have to break that news gently to the Pope,” 
returned Dolan. “ I’ll not try it. Right’s right. Mart 
Culpepper, and wrong’s wrong for me and for Johnnie Bar¬ 
clay, white, black, brown, or yellow — ’tis the same.” 

“ There’s nothing in your theory, Mart,” cut in the gen¬ 
eral, folding his paper across his knee ; “ not a thing in 
the world. We’re all parts of a whole, and the only 
way this is an individual problem at all—this working out 
of the race’s destiny — is that the whole can’t improve so 
long as the parts don’t grow. So long as we all are like 
John Barclay save in John’s courage to do wrong, laws 
won’t help us much, and putting John in jail won’t do so 
very much — though it may scare the cowards until John’s 
kind of crime grows unpopular. But what we must have 
is individual — ” 

Tinkle goes the bell over Watts McHurdie’s head — the 
bell tied to a cord that connects with the front door. 
Down jumps Watts, and note the play of the lights from 
the flies, observe that spot light moving toward R. U. E., 
there by the door of the shop. Yes, all ready; enter John 
Barclay. See that iron smile on his face ; he has not sur¬ 
rendered. He has been clean-shaven, and entering that 
door, he is as spick and span as though he were on a 
wedding journey. Give him a hand or a hiss as you will, 
ladies and gentlemen, John Barclay has entered at the 
Right Upper Entrance, and the play may proceed. 

“ Well,” he grinned, “ I suppose you are talking it over. 
Colonel, has the jury come to a verdict yet ? ” 

What a suave John Barclay it was; how admirably he 
held his nerve; not a quiver in the face, not a ruffle of the 
voice. The general looked at him over his spectacles, and 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


345 


could not keep the kindness out of his eyes. “ What a brick 
you are ! ” he said to himself, and Jake Dolan, conquered 
by the simplicity of it, surrendered. 

“ Oh, well, John, I suppose we all have our little troub¬ 
les,” said Jake. Only that; the rack of the inquisitor 
grew limp. And Colonel Culpepper rose and gave Bar¬ 
clay his hand and spoke not a word. The silence was 
awkward, and at the end of a few moments the colonel 
found words. 

“ How,” he asked in his thick asthmatic voice, mushy 
with emotion, “how in the world did this happen, John? 
How did it happen ? ” 

Barclay looked at the general; no, he did not glare, 
for John Barclay had grown tame during the night, al¬ 
most docile, one would say. But he did not answer at 
first, and Watts McHurdie, bending over his work, 
chuckled out: “Ten miles from Springfield, madam — 
ten miles from Springfield.” And then John sloughed 
off thirty years and laughed. And the general laughed, 
and the colonel smiled, and Jake Dolan took John Bar¬ 
clay’s hand from the colonel, and said: —• 

“ The court adjudges that the prisoner at the bar pay 
the assembled company four of those cigars in his inside 
pocket, and stand committed until the same is paid.” 

And then there was a scratching of matches, and a puff¬ 
ing, and Barclay spoke : “ I knew there was one place on 
earth where I was welcome. The mill is swarming with re¬ 
porters, and I thought I’d slip away. They’ll not find me 
here.” The parliament smoked in silence, and again Bar. 
clay said, “Well, gentlemen, it’s pretty tough—pretty 
tough to work all your life to build up an industry and 
in the end — get this.” 

“ Well, John,” said the general, as he rolled up his news¬ 
paper and put it away, “ I’m sorry — just as sorry as Mart 
is; not so much for the indictment, that is all part of the 
inevitable consequence of your creed; if it hadn’t been the 
indictment, it would have been something else, equally sad 
— don’t you see, John ? ” 

“ Oh. I know what vou think. General,” retorted Bar* 


346 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


clay, bitterly. “ I know your idea; you think it’s retribu¬ 
tion.” 

“Not exactly that either, John — just the other side of 
the equation. You have reaped what you sowed, and I 
am sorry for what you sowed. God gave you ten talents, 
John Barclay — ten fine talents, my boy, and you wrapped 
them in a napkin and buried them in the ground, buried 
them in greed and cunning and love of power, and you 
are reaping envy and malice and cruelty. You were effi¬ 
cient, John ; oh, if I had been as efficient as you, how much 
I could have done for this world — how much — how 
much 1 ” he mused wistfully. 

Barclay did not reply, but his face was hard, and his 
neck was stiff, and he was not moved. He was still the 
implacable Mr. Barclay, the rich Mr. Barclay, and he 
would have no patronage from old Phil Ward—Phil 
Ward the crank, who was a nation’s joke. Ting-a-ling 
went the bell over Watts McHurdie’s head, and the little 
man climbed down from his bench and hurried into the 
shop. But instead of a customer, Mr. J. K. Mercheson, 
J. Iv. Mercheson representing Barber, Hancock, and Kohn, 
— yes, the whip trust; that’s what they call it, but it is 
really an industrial organization of the trade, — Mr. J. K. 
Mercheson of New York came in. No, McIIurdie did 
not need anything at present, and he backed into the shop. 
He had all of the goods in that line that he could carry 
just now; and he sidled toward his seat. The members 
of the parliament effaced themselves, as loafers do in every 
busy place when business comes up ; the colonel got behind 
his paper, Barclay hid back of the stove, Dolan examined a 
bit of harness, and the general busied hie self picking up 
the litter on the floor, and folding the papers with the 
pictures of Barclay inside so that he would not be annoyed 
by them. But Mr. Mercheson knew how to get orders; 
he knew that the thing to do is to stay with the trade. 

So he leaned against the work bench and began: — 

“ This is a great town, Mr. McHurdie ; we’re always 
hearing from Sycamore Ridge. When I’m in tbo East 
they say, 4 What kind of a town is that Sycamore Ridge 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


347 


where Watts McHurdie and your noted reformer, Robert 
Hendricks, who was offered a place in the cabinet, and 
this man John Barclay live? ’ ” 

Mr. Mercheson paused for effect. Mr. McHurdie 
smiled and went on with his work. 

“ Say,” said Mr. Mercheson, “ your man Barclay is in 
all the papers this morning. I was in the smoker of the 
sleeper last evening coming out of Chicago, and we got to 
talking about him — and Lord, how the fellows did roast 
him.” 

“ They did ? ” asked Barclay, from his chair behind the 
stove. 

“Sure,” replied Mr. Mercheson; “roasted him good 
and brown. There wasn’t a man in the smoker but me 
to stand up for him.” 

“ So you stood up for the old scoundrel, did you ? ” 
asked Barclay. 

“ Sure,” answered the travelling man. “ Anything to 
get up an argument, you know,” he went on, beginning 
to see which way sentiment lay in the shop. “ I’ve been 
around town this morning, and I find the people here 
don’t approve of him for a minute, any more than they did 
on the train.” 

“ What do they say ? ” asked Barclay, braiding a four- 
strand whip, and finding that his cunning of nearly fifty 
years had not left his fingers. 

“ Oh, it isn’t so much what they say — but you can tell, 
don’t you know ; it’s what they don’t say ; they don’t 
defend him. I guess they like him personally, but they 
know he’s a thief ; that’s the idea — they simply can’t 
defend him and they don’t try. The government has got 
him dead to rights. Say,” he went on, “just to be argu¬ 
ing, you know last evening I took a poll of the train — 
the limited — the Golden State Limited—swell train, swell 
crowd—all rich old roosters; and honest, do you know 
that out of one hundred and twenty-three votes polled 
only four were for him, and three of those were girls who 
said they knew his daughter at the state university, and 
had visited at his house. Wasn’t that funny ? ” 


348 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Barclay laughed grimly, and answered, “Well, it was 
pretty funny considering that I'm John Barclay.” 

The suspense of the group in the shop was broken, and 
they laughed, too. 

“ Oh, hell,” said Mr. Mercheson, “ come off ! ” Then he 
turned to McHurdie and tried to talk trade to him. But 
Watts was obdurate, and the man soon left the shop, eying 
Barclay closely. He stood in the door and said, as he 
went out of the store, “Well, you do look some like his 
pictures, Mister.” 

There was a silence when the stranger went, and Barclay, 
whose face had grown red, cried, “Damn ’em—damn 
’em all — kick a man when he is down!” 

Again the bell tinkled, and McHurdie went into the 
shop. Evidently a customer was looking at a horse collar, 
for through the glass door they could see Watts’ hook go 
up to the ceiling and bring one down. 

“John,” said the colonel, when Barclay had spoken, 
“John, don’t mind it. Look at me, John—look at me! 
They had to put me in jail, you know; but every one 
seems to have forgotten it but me—and I am a dog that 
I don’t.” 

John Barclay looked at the old, broken man, discarded 
from the playing-cards of life, with the hurt, surprised 
look always in his eyes, and it was with an effort that the 
suave Mr. Barclay kept the choke in his throat out of his 
voice as he replied: — 

“Yes, Colonel, yes, I know I have no right to kick 
against the pricks.” 

Watts was saying: “Yes, he’s in there now—with the 
boys; you better go in and cheer him up.” 

And then at the upper right-hand entrance entered 
Gabriel Carnine, president of the State Bank, unctuous 
as a bishop. He ignored the others, and walking to Bar¬ 
clay, put out his hand. “ Well, well, John, glad to see you; 
just came up from the mill — I was looking for you. 
Couldn’t find Neal, either. Where is he?” 

The general answered curtly, “Neal is in Chicago, 
working on the Record-Herald .” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


349 


“Oh,” returned Carnine, and did not pursue the sub¬ 
ject further. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “fine winter 
weather we’re having.” 

“ Is that so ? ” chipped in Dolan. “ Mr. Barclay was 
finding it a little mite warm.” 

Carnine ignored Dolan, and Barclay grinned. “Well, 
John,” Carnine hesitated, “ I was just down to see you — 
on a little matter of business.” 

“ Delighted, sir, delighted,” exclaimed Dolan, as he rose 
to go; “we were going, anyway—weren’t we, General? ” 
The veterans rose, and Colonel Culpepper said as he went, 
“I told Molly to call for me here about noon with the 
buggy — if she comes, tell her to wait.” 

All of life may not be put on the stage, and this scene 
has to be cut; for it was at the end of half an hour’s 
aimless, footless, foolish talk that Gabriel Carnine came 
to the business in hand. Round and round the bush he 
beat the devil, before he hit him a whack. Then he said, 
as if it had just occurred to him, “We were wondering — 
some of the directors — this morning, if under the circum¬ 
stances — oh, say just for the coming six months or such 
a matter—it might not be wise to reorganize our board; 
freshen it up, don’t you know; kind of get some new 
names on it, and drop the old ones — not permanently, 
but just to give the other stockholders a show on the 
board.” 

“ So you want me to get off, do you ? ” blurted Barclay. 
“ You’re afraid of my name — now?” 

The screams of Mr. Carnine, the protesting screams of 
that oleaginous gentleman, if they could have been vocal¬ 
ized in keeping with their muffled, low-voiced, whispering 
earnestness, would have been loud enough to be heard a 
mile away, but Barclay talked out: — 

“ All right, take my name off; and out comes my account. 
I don’t care.” 

And thereupon the agony of Mr. Carnine was unutter¬ 
able. If he had been a natural man, he would have 
howled in pain; as it was, he merely purred. But Bar¬ 
clay’s skin was thin that day, sensitive to every touch, 


350 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


and lie felt the rough hand of Carnine and winced. He 
let the old man whine and pur and stroke his beard 
awhile, and then Barclay said wearily, “ All right, just as 
you please, Gabe — I’ll not move my account. It’s 
nothing to me.” 

In another minute the feline foot of Mr. Carnine was 
pattering gently toward the front door. Barclay sat 
looking at the stove, and Watts went on working. Bar¬ 
clay sighed deeply once or twice, but McHurdie paid no 
heed to him. Finally Barclay rose and went over to the 
bench. 

“ Watts,” cried Barclay, “ what do you think about it 
— you, your own self, what do you think way down in 
your heart ? ” 

Watts sewed a stitch or two without speaking, and then 
put down his thread and put up his glasses and said, 
“ That’s fairly spoken, John Barclay, and will have a 
fair answer.” 

The old man paused; Barclay cried impatiently, “Oh, 
well, Watts, don’t be afraid— nothing can hurt me much 
now! ” 

“ I was just a-thinking, lad,” said Watts, gently, “just 
a-thinking.” 

“What?” cried Barclay. 

“Just a-thinking,” returned the old man, as he put his 
hand on the younger man’s shoulder, “ what a fine poet 
you spoiled in your life, just to get the chance to go to jail. 
But the Lord knows His business, I suppose I ” he added 
with a twinkle in his eye, “and if He thinks a poet 
more or less in jail would help more than one out — it 
is all for the best, John, all for the best. But, my boy,” he 
cried earnestly, “if you’ll be going to jail, don’t whine, 
lad. Go to jail like a gentleman, John Barclay, go to 
jail like a gentleman, and serve your Lord there like 
a man.” 

“Damn cheerful you are, Watts,” returned Barclay. 
“What a lot of Job’s comforters you fellows have been 
this morning.” He went on half bitterly and half jok¬ 
ingly: “Beginning with the general, continuing with 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


351 


your travelling salesman friend, and following up with 
Gabe, who wants me to get off the board of directors of 
his bank for the moral effect of it, and coming on down 
to you who bid me Godspeed to jail — I have had a — a 

— a rather gorgeous morning. ” 

The door-bell tinkled, and a woman’s voice called, 
44 Father, father! ” 

“Yes, Molly,” the harness maker answered; “he’ll be 
here pretty soon. He said for you to wait.” 

“ Come in, for heaven’s sake, Molly,” cried Barclay, 
“come back here and cheer me up.” 

“ Oh, all right — it’s you, John ? What are you doing 
back here ? I’m so glad to find you. I’ve just got the 
dearest letter from Jane. We won’t talk business or any¬ 
thing — you know how I feel, and how sorry I am — so 
just let’s read Jane’s letter; it has something in it to 
cheer you. She said she was going to write it to you the 
next day — but I’ll read it to you.” And so Mrs. Brown- 
well took from her pocketbook the crumpled letter and 
unfolded it. “It’s so like Jane — just good hard sense 
clear through.” She turned the pages hastily, and finally 
the fluttering of the sheets stopped. “ Oh, yes,” she said, 
“here’s the place — the rest she’s told you. Let me see — 
Oh : 4 And, Molly, what do you think ? — there’s a duke 
after Jeanette — a miserable, little, dried-up, burned-out, 
poverty-stricken Italian duke. And oh, how much good 
it did us both to cut him, and let him know how ill-bred 
we considered him, how altogether beneath any whole¬ 
some honest girl we thought such a fellow.’ And now, 
John, isn’t this like Jane?” interposed Mrs. Brownwell. 
“ Listen; she says, 4 Molly, do you know, I am so happy 
about Jeanette and Neal. We run such an awful risk 
with this money — such a horrible risk of unhappiness and 
misery for the poor child — heaven knows she would be so 
much happier without it. And to think, dear, that she 
has found the one in the world for her, in the sweet simple 
way that a girl should always find him, and that the money 

— the menacing thing that hangs like a shadow over her —• 
cannot by any possibility spoil her life 1 It makes me 


352 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


happy all the day, and I go singing through life with 305 ) 
at the thought that the money won’t hurt Jennie — that 
it can’t take from her the joy that comes from living with 
her lover all her life, as I have lived.’ Isn’t that fine, 
John?” asked Mrs. Brownwell, and looking up, she saw 
John Barclay, white-faced, with trembling jaw, staring in 
pain at the stove. Watts had gone into the store to wait 
on a customer, and the woman, seeing the man’s anguish, 
came to him and said: “Why, John, what is it? How 
have I hurt you? — I thought this would cheer you so.” 

The man rose heavily. His colour was coming back. 
44 Oh, God — God,” he cried, 44 1 needed that to-day — I 
needed that.” 

The woman looked at him, puzzled and nonplussed. 
44 Why — why — why ? ” she stammered. 

44 Oh, nothing,” he smiled back at her bitterly, 44 ex¬ 
cept—” and his jaw hardened as he snapped — 44 except 
that Neal Ward is a damned informer — and I’ve sent 
him about his business, and Jeanette’s got to do the same.’’ 

Mollie Brownwell looked at him with hard eyes for a 
moment, and then asked, 44 What did Neal do?” 

44 Well,” replied Barclay, 44 under cross-examination, Til 
admit without incriminating myself that he gave the testi¬ 
mony which indicted me.” 

“Was it that or lie, John?” He did not reply, A 
silence fell, and the woman broke it with a cry : 44 Oh, 
John Barclay, John Barclay, must your traffic in souls 
reach your own flesh and blood ? Haven’t you enough 
without selling her into Egypt, too ? Haven’t you 
enough money now ? ” And without waiting for answer, 
Molly Brownwell turned and left him staring into noth¬ 
ing, with his jaw agape. 

It was noon and a band was playing up the street, and 
as he stood by the stove in McHurdie’s shop, he remem¬ 
bered vaguely that he had seen banners flying and some 
44 Welcome ” arches across the street as he walked through 
the town that morning. He realized that some lodge or 
conclave or assembly was gathering in the town, and that 
the band was a part of its merriment. It was playing a 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


353 


gay tune and came nearer and nearer. But as he stood 
leaning upon his chair, with his heart quivering and raw 
from its punishment, he did not notice that the band had 
stopped in front of the harness shop. His mind went 
back wearily to the old days, fifty years before, when as a 
toddling child in dresses he used to play on that very 
scrap-heap outside the back door, picking up bits of 
leather, and in his boyhood days, playing pranks upon the 
little harness maker, and braiding his whips for the town 
herd. Then he remembered the verses Watts had written 
about Bob Hendricks and him in that very room, and the 
music he and Watts had played together there. The old 
song Watts had made in his presence in the hospital at 
St. Louis came back to his mind. Did it come because 
outside the band had halted and was playing that old song 
to serenade Watts McITurdie? Or did it come because 
John Barclay was wondering if, had he made a poet of 
himself, or a man of spiritual and not of material power, 
it would have been better for him? 

Heaven knows why the old tune came into his head. 

But when he recognized that they were serenading the 

little harness maker, and that so far as they thought of 

John Barclay and his power and his achievements, it 

was with scorn, he had a flash of insight into his relations 

with the world that illumined his soul for a moment and 

then died away. The great Mr. Barclay, alone, sitting in 

the dingy little harness shop, can hear the band strike up 

the old familiar tune again, and hear the crowd cheer and 

roar its applause at the little harness maker, who stands 

shamefaced and abashed, coatless and aproned, before the 

crowd. And he is only a poet — hardly a poet, would be 

a better way to say it; an exceedingly bad poet who makes 

bad rhymes, and thinks trite thoughts, and says silly and 

often rather stupid things, but who once had his say, 

and for that one hour of glorious liberty of the soul has 

moved millions of hearts to love him. John Barclay does 

%/ 

not envy Watts McHurdie — not at all; for Barclay, with 
all his faults, is not narrow-gauged; he does not wish they 
would call for him — not to-day — not at all; he could not 


354 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


face them now, even if they cheered him. He says in his 
heart of pride, beneath his stiff neck, that it is all right ; 
that Watts, — poor little church-mouse of a Watts, whom 
he could buy five times over with the money that has 
dropped into the Barclay till since he entered the shop — 
that Watts should have his due ; but only — only — only 
— that is it — only, but only — ! 


CHAPTER XXYI 


And now as we go out into the busy world, after this 
act in the dawning of John Barclay’s life, let the court 
convene, and the reporters gather, and the honourable 
special counsel for the government rage, and the defendant 
sit nervous and fidgety as the honourable counsel reads the 
indictment; let the counsel for the defendant swell and* 
strut with indignation that such indignities should be put 
upon honest men and useful citizens, and let the court 
frown, and ponder and consider; for that is what courts 
are for, but what do we care for it all ? We have left it all 
behind, with the ragged programmes in the seats. So if 
the honourable court, in the person of the more or less 
honourable Elijah Westlake Bemis, after the fashion of 
federal judges desiring to do a questionable thing, calls 
in a judge from a neighbouring court — what do we care? 
And if the judge of the neighbouring court, after much 
legal hemming and judicial hawing, decides in his great 
wisdom—that the said defendant Barclay has been charged 
in the indictment with no crime, and instructs the jury to 
find a verdict of not guilty for said defendant John Bar¬ 
clay, upon the mere reading of the indictment, — what are 
the odds? What do we care if the men in the packed 
courtroom hiss and the reporters put down the hisses in 
their note-books and editors write the hisses in headlines, 
and presses print the hisses all over the world? For the 
fidgety little man is free now — entirely free save for fifty- 
four years of selfish life upon his shoulders. 

In the trial of nearly every cause it becomes necessary 
at some point in the proceedings to halt the narrative and 
introduce certain exhibits, records, and documents, upon 
which foregone evidence has been based, and to which 
coming testimony may properly be attached. That point 
has been reached in the case now before the reader. And 

355 


356 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


as “Exhibit A” let us submit a letter written by John 
Barclay, January seventh, nineteen hundred and four* 
to Jane, his wife, at Naples. 

“ As I cabled you this afternoon, the case resulted exactly as I said 
It would the day after the indictment. I had not seen or talked with 
Lige since that day I talked with him over the telephone, before the 
indictment was made public, but 1 knew Lige well enough to know 
how he would act under fire. I had him out to dinner this evening, 
and we talked over old times, and he tells me he wants to retire from 
the bench. Jane, Lige has been my mainstay ever since this com¬ 
pany was organized. Sometimes I feel that without his help in poli¬ 
tics— looking to see that pernicious legislation was killed, and that 
the right men were elected to administrative offices, and appointed to 
certain judicial places—we never would have been able to get the 
company to its present high standing. I feel that he has been so 
valuable to us that we should settle a sum on him that will make 
him a rich man as men go in the Ridge. Heaven knows that is little 
enough, considering all that he has done. He may have his faults, 
Jane, but he has been loyal to me. 

“ I hope, my dear, that Jeanette has ceased to worry about the other 
matter; he is not worth her tears. Don’t come home for a month or 
two yet. The same conditions prevail that I spoke of in my first cable 
the day of the indictment. The press and the public are perfectly 
crazy. America is one great howling mob, and it would make you 
and Jennie unhappy. As for me, 1 don’t mind it. You know me.’’ 

And that the reader may know how truthful John Bar¬ 
clay is, let us append herewith a letter written by Mrs, 
Mary Barclay, of Sycamore Ridge, to her granddaughter 
at Naples, January 15, 1904. She writes among other 
things: — 

“ Well, dear, it is a week now since your father's case was settled, 
and he was at home for the first time last night. I expected that 
his victory— such as it was —would cheer him up, but some way he 
seems worse in the dumps than he was before. lie does not sleep 
well, and is getting too nervous for a man of his age. I have the im« 
pression that he is forever battling with something Of course the 
public temper is bitter, dearie. You are a woman now, and should 
not be shielded and pampered with lies, so I am going to tell you the 
truth. The indignation of the people of this nation at your father, 
as he represents present business methods, is past belief. And frankly, 
dearie, I can’t blame them. Your father and my son is a brave, sweet, 
loving man ; none could be finer in this world, Jennie. But the head 
of the National Provisions Company is another person, dear; and of 
him I do not approve, as you know so well. I am sending you Nea* 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


357 


Ward's statement which was published by the government the day 
after the case was dismissed. I have not sent it to you before, because 
I wanted to ask your father if it was true. Jennie, he admits that 
Neal told the truth, and nothing but the truth — and did not make it 
as bad as it was. You are entitled to the facts. You are a grown 
woman now, dear, and must make your own decisions. But oh, my 
dear little girl, I am heartsick to see your father breaking as he is. 
He seems to be fighting — fighting — fighting all the time; perhaps 
it is against the flames of public wrath, but some way I think he is 
fighting something inside himself — fighting it back; fightingit down 
— whatever it is.” 

Counsel also begs indulgence while he introduces and 
reads two clippings from the Sycamore Ridge Daily Ban * 
ner % of February 12, 1904. The first one reads : — 


“Judge Bemis Retires 


“Hon. E. W. Bemis has retired from the federal bench, and rumour 
has it that he is soon to return with his estimable wife to our midst. 
Our people will welcome the judge and Mrs. Bemis with open arms. 
He retires from an honourable career, to pass his declining years in 
the peace and quiet of the town in which he began his career over 
fifty years ago. For as every one knows, he came West as a boy, and 
before having been admitted to the bar dealt largely in horses and 
cattle. He has always been a good business man, having with his 
legal acumen the acquisitive faculty, and now he is looking for some 
place to invest a modest competence here in the Ridge, and rumour 
Las it again that he is negotiating for the purchase of the Sycamore 
Ridge Waterworks bonds, which are now in litigation. If so, he 
will make an admirable head of that popular institution*” 

In this connection, and before introducing the other 
clipping from the Banner, it would be entirely proper to 
introduce the manuscript for the above, in the typewrit¬ 
ing of the stenographer of Judge Bemis’s court, and a 
check for fifty dollars payable to Adrian Brownwell, 
signed by Judge Bemis aforesaid; but those documents 
would only clog the narrative and would not materially 
strengthen the ease, so they will be thrown out. 

The second clipping, found in the personal column of 
the Banner of the date referred to, February 12, 1904, 
follows : —■> 


358 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“Mrs. John Barclay and Miss Barclay are on the steamer Etruria 
which was sighted off Fire Island to-day. They will spend a few 
weeks in New York, and early in March Miss Barclay will enter the 
state university to do some post-graduate work in English, and Mrs. 
Barclay "will return to Sycamore Ridge. Mr. Barclay Mull meet them 
at the pier, and they expect to spend the coming two weeks attending 
German opera. Mrs. Mary Barclay left to-day for the East to join them. 
She will remain a month visiting relatives near Haverhill, Mass.** 

It becomes necessary to append some letters of Miss 
Jeanette Barclay’s, and they are set down here in the order 
in which they were written, though the first one takes the 
reader back a few weeks to December 5,1903. It was posted 
at Rome, and in the body of it are found these words : — 

“My dear, I know you will smile when you hear I have been read¬ 
ing all the Italian scientific books I can find, dealing with the human 
brain — partly to help my Italian, but chiefly, I think, to see if I can 
find and formulate some sort of a definition for love. It is so much a 
part of my soul, dear heart, that I would like to know more about it. 
And I am going to M 7 rite doM r n for you what I think it is as we know 
it. I have been wearing your ring nearly three years, Neal, and if 
you had only known it, I M ould have been happy to have taken it a 
year sooner. In those four years I have grown from a girl to a M'oman, 
and you have become a man full grown. In that time all my thoughts 
have centred on vou. In all mv schoolbooks vour face comes back 

V 1/ • 

to me as I open them in fancy. As I think of the old room at school, 
of my Malk up the hill, as I think of home and my room there, some 
thought of you is always between me and the picture. All through 
my physical brain are little fibres running to every centre that bring 
up images of you. You are w’oven into my life, and I know in my 
heart that I am woven into your life. The thing is done; it is as muck 
a part of my being as my blood—those million fibres of my brain 
that from every part of my consciousness bring thoughts of you. We 
cannot be separated now, darling — M r e are united for life, w r hether 
we unite in life or not. I am yours and you are mine. It is now as 
inexorable as anything we cal] material. More than that — you have 
made my soul. All the aspirations of my spiritual life go to you for 
beginning and for being as truly as the fibres of my brain thrill to 
the sound of your name or the mental image of your face. My soul 
is your soul, because in the making the thought of you was uppermost. 
I know that my love for you is immortal, ineffaceable, and though 
I should live a hundred years, that love would still be as much a 
part of my life as my hands or my eyes or my body. And the best 
of it all is that I am so glad it is so. Divorce is as impossible with 
a love like that as amputation of the brain. It is big and vital in 
me, real and certain, and so long as I live on earth, or dwell in 
eternity, my soul and your soul are knit together.** 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


359 


Three weeks later, on December 28, 1903, Miss Barclay 
wrote to Mr. Ward as follows: — 

“ Your letter and father’s letter were on my desk when we returned 
from our cruise. I have just finished writing to him, and I herewith 
return your ring and your pin.” 

There was neither signature nor superscription—just 
those words. And a month later, Miss Barclay wrote 
this letter to her Grandmother Barclay in Sycamore 
Ridge: — 

“My dear, dear Granny: I have told mother what you wrote of 
father, and we are coming home just as soon as we can get a steamer. 
We are cabling him to-day, and hope to sail within a week or ten days at 
the very farthest. But 1 cannot wait until I see you, dear, to come close 
into your heart. And first of all I want you to know that I share youi 
views about the heart-break of all this money and the miserable man¬ 
killing way it is being piled up. I know the two men you speak of — 
father and the president of the N.P.C. But he is my father, and I must 
stand by him, and brace him if I can. But, oh, Granny, I don’t 
want the old money ! It has never made me happy — never for one 
minute. The only happiness I have ever had was when he was at 
home with us all, away from business — and — but you know about that 
other happiness, and it hurts to speak of it now. I have not read 
what you sent me. 1 can’t. But I will keep it. That it is true 
doesn’t help me any. Nothing can help me. It is just one of those 
awful things that I have read of coming to people, but which I thought 
never could possibly come to me. Oh, Granny, Granny, you who pray 
so much for others, now pray 1 for me. Granny, you can’t cut some¬ 
thing out of you — right out of the heart of you, by merely saying 
so; it keeps growing back; it hurts, and hurts, and keeps hurting; 
even if you know it is cut out and thrown away. They say that men 
who have had legs cut off can feel them for months and even ^ ears 
if they are cramped when they are buried. The nerves of the old 
dead body reach through space and hurt. It is that way with me. 
The old dead thing in my heart that is buried and gone keeps cramp¬ 
ing and hurting. You are the only one I can come to, Granny. It 
hurts mother too much, and she is not strong this winter. I think it 
is worry. She is growing thin, and her heart doesn’t act right. I am 
terribly worried about her; but she made me promise to say nothing 
to father, and you must not, either; for he will see for himself soon.” 

A few letters from Neal Ward to Jeanette Barclay, 
and a document some twenty years old, which the reader 
may have forgotten, but which one person connected with 
this narrative has feared would come to light every day in 


360 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


that time — and then this tedious business of introducing 
documentary evidence will be over. The letter from Neal 
Ward to Jeanette Barclay is one of hundreds that he wrote 
and never mailed. They were dated, sealed, addressed, 
and put away. This one was written at midnight as the 
bells and whistles and pistols and fireworks were wel* 
coming the year 1904. It begins: — 

“ My very Dearest: Here I am sitting at the old desk again, in 
the old office of the Banner. I could only scribble you a little note on 
the train last night to tell you that my heart still was with you, and I 
did not have the time to explain why I was coming. It is a dead 
secret, little woman, and perhaps I shouldn’t tell even you, but I feel 
that I must bring everything to you. Bob Hendricks wired me to 
come down. He has a mortgage on the Banner , and he feels that 
things are not being properly managed, so he persuaded Mr. Brown- 
well to give me a place as sort of manager of the paper at twenty dol¬ 
lars a week — a sum that seems princely considering that I was making 
only eighteen dollars in Chicago, and that it costs so much less to live 
here. Hendricks guarantees my wages, so that Adrian cannot stand 
me off. Hendricks has another motive for wanting me to come here. 
The waterworks franchise will come up for renewal June first of this 
year, and Mr. Hendricks is for municipal ownership. Carnine and 
the State Bank are against municipal ownership, because the water 
company does business with them, and as they control the Index , they 
are preparing to make a warm fight for the renewal of the old franchise. 
So there will be a hot time in the old town this spring. But the mis¬ 
erable part of it is this. The growth of the town has made it danger¬ 
ous to use the present supply station. The water must not come out 
of the mill-pond any longer, as the town is tilted so that all the surface 
drainage goes into it, and the sewers that drain into it, while they 
drain a few hundred yards below the intake of the waterworks, cannot 
help tainting the whole pond. Mr. Hendricks has had an expert here 
W'ho declared that both the typhoid and diphtheria epidemics here last 
fall were due directly to the w r ater supply, and Mr. Hendricks is going 
to make the fight of his life to have the city buy the waterworks 
plant, and move the intake six miles above town, w’here there is plenty 
of clean w r ater. Of course it will mean first a city election to get 
decent councilmen, and then a bond election to vote money to buy the 
old plant; the waterworks company are going to move heaven and 
earth to get an anti-IIendricks council elected and to renew the fran¬ 
chise and let things go as they are. So that is why 1 am here, dear 
heart, and oh, my darling, you do not know how painful it all seems to 
be here and not have you — I mean — you know w’hat I mean. All 
my associations with the work here in the office and on the street are 
with my heart close to yours. Everything in the old town tells me 
of you. * Saint Andrews by the N orthern sea, a haunted city is to me' 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


361 


To-night I hear the music of the New Year's dance, and I can shut my 
eyes and feel you with me there. Oh, sweetheart, I have kept you so 
close, by writing to you every night. I come and lay my heart and all 
its thoughts at your shrine, and put all my day’s work before you for 
your approval, just as I used to do. It is so sweet a privilege. 

“ Last night I dreamed about you. It was so real and your voice 
sounded so clearly, crying to me, that you have been with me all day. 
I wonder if while we sleep, we whose souls would struggle to meet 
through eternity, if through the walls of space they may not find 
each other, and speak to each other through our dreams. It is mid¬ 
night here now, and you are just waking, perhaps, or just sleeping 
that sleep of early morning wherein the soul sinks to unknown depths. 
Oh — oh —oh, if I could but speak to you there, my dear! I am 
going to sit here and close my eyes and try.” 

The next letter in the exhibit was written six weeks later 
and is dated February 12, 1904. It says in part: — 

u I must teh you what a bully fellow Bob Hendricks is. Judge 
Bemis. sent a highly laudatory article about himself to the office to¬ 
day with a check for fifty dollars. In the article it develops that he 
is going to retire from the federal bench and come down here and 
buy the waterworks plant — on the theory that he will get a bargain 
because of the expiring franchise and the prospective fight. That 
fifty dollars looked as big as a barn to poor Adrian, so he trotted olf 
with the letter and the check to Hendricks. Of course, the letter and 
the check together, just framed and put in the bank window, would 
make great sport of the judge; but Bob is a thoroughbred, and prob¬ 
ably Bemis knows it, and figures on that in his dealings with him. 
I was in the bank when Adrian came in with the letter. He showed 
the check and the article to Hendricks, and you could almost see 
Adrian wag his tail and hear him whine to keep the check; Bob 
looked at the poor fellow’s wistful eyes and handed it back with a 
quizzical little smile and said, ‘Oh, I guess I’d run it; it can’t hurt 
anything.’ The light that came into Adrian’s eyes was positively 
beatific, and he shook Bob by the hand, and twirled his cane, and 
waved his gloves in a sort of canine ecstasy, and trotted to the 
cashier’s window with the check like a dog with a bone. It is the largest 
piece of real money he has had in six months, the boys say, and he 
has spent it for clothes. To-morrow he will hurry off to the first con¬ 
vention in the city like a comet two centuries behind time. But that 
is beside the point; the thing I don’t like is the coming of Bemis. I 
know him; the things I have seen him do in your father’s business and 
when he was on the bench, make me shudder for decent politics in this 
town. He is shrewd, unscrupulous, and without any restraint on earth, 

“I feel closer to you than I have felt since I put the barrier be' 
tween us. For you are in this country to-night—I could go to the 
telephone there five feet away and reach you if I would* I looked 


362 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


to-day in the papers and saw that they would be giving Lohengrin at 
the Metropolitan Opera House, and knowing your father as I do, I 
think he will take you there. I can hear the music rising and see 
you drinking in the harmony, and as it swells into exquisite pain, and 
thrills through the holy places of your soul where are old memories 
of our love, sweetheart, maybe your spirit will go forth in God’c 
strange universe where we all dwell neighbours, loosed from those 
material chains that bind our bodies, and will seek the heart that is 
searching for you out there in the highway of heaven. I seem to feel 
you now, dear soul — did the music fling your spirit free for a second 
till it touched my own? I am so happy, Jeanette — even to love you 
and to know that you have loved me, and must always love me while 
you are you and I am I.” 

And now let us consider the final exhibit. It will be 
necessary to turn back the action of this story a month 
and a half and sit with John Barclay and his friend, 
former federal judge Elijah Westlake Bemis, before the 
fire in the wide fireplace in the Barclay home, one cold 
January night, a week after Barclay had gone free from 
':he court and the world had hissed him. They were 
talking of the judge’s business future, and the judge was 
saying : — 

“John, how did Bob Hendricks ever straighten out that 
affair in the treasurer’s office in connection with the first 
year’s taxes of the old Wheat Company ? What did he 
do with it finally ? ” 

Barclay looked at the fire and then turned his search¬ 
light eyes into Bemis’s. There was not a quiver. The 
man sat there without a muscle of his parchment face 
moving. His eyes were squinted up, looking at the tip 
of his long cigar. 

“ Why ?” asked Barclay. 

“Well,” responded Bemis, impassive as an ox, ‘it 
would help me in my business to know. Tell me,” 

He spoke the last two words as one in authority. 

“ Well,” answered Barclay, “ one day back in the 
seventies, I was appointed to check up the treasurer’s 
book, and I found where he had fixed it on the county 
books — apparently between two administrations. I rec¬ 
ognized his hand; and it made the balance for the first 
time.” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 363 

Bemis smoked awhile. “ What time in the seventies ? * 
he asked. 

There was a pause. “In January, 1879.” 

Bemis grinned a wicked, mean little grin and said j 

That settles it. I believe I am safe in buying the water 
works.” 

“ What are you going to do to Bob ? ” Barclay asked. 

“ Nothing, nothing — absolutely nothing, if he has any 
sense and drops this municipal ownership tommyrot. 
Absolutely nothing.” 

Again the grin came over his face, and at the end of a 
pause Barclay said : — 

“ Well, if not, what then ? ” 

Bemis shut his eyes and crossed his gaunt legs, and 
began: “Think back twenty years ago—more or less. 
Do you remember when I brought your car down here 
for Watts McHurdie and his crowd to go to Washington 
in, to the G.A.R. celebration? All right; do you re¬ 
member that I came to the office and told you I saw Bob 
Hendricks waiting for some one at the Union Station, 
when the train got into the city that morning ? ” 

“Yes,” said Barclay, “you were so mysterious and 
funny about it, I remember.” 

“ Well,” said Bemis, as he got up and poked a log that 
was annoying him in the fireplace, “ well, I have a little 
document in my desk at home, that I got the night before 
in the Ridge, which will convince Bobbie, if he has any 
sense, that this municipal ownership business isn’t all it’s 
cracked up to be.” 

Barclay, who knew from Jane something of the truth, 
guessed the rest, but he did not question Bemis further. 
“ Oh, I don’t know, Lige,” he began; “ it seems to me I 
wouldn’t drag that into it.” 

Bemis turned his old face, full of malicious passion, 
toward Barclay and cried, “Maybe you wouldn’t, John 
Barclay — you forget tilings; but I never do; and you’re 
a coward sometimes, and I am not.” 

The blaze of his wrath went out in a moment, and Bar* 
clay’s mind went back to that afternoon in the seventies 


m 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


when Hendrick; picked Berais up and threw him bodily 
from the county convention and branded him as a boodler. 
Barclay knew argument was useless. So he said nothing. 

“He has the county officers — every man-jack of them 
from the treasurer to Jake Dolan, the janitor — and I 
couldn’t get hold of that book by fair means without his 
knowing it. But I am going to have that book, John — 
I’m going to have that book.” 

Barclay followed Bemis’s mental processes, as if they 
were his own. “ Well — what if he does know it? ” asked 
Barclay. 

“ Oh, if he knew I was after the book, he’d fix me, — 
have it destroyed or something ; he could do lots of things 
or beat me some way. I’ve got to get that book —get is 
out of the court-house — and there’s just one way to get 
into the court-house, without using the doors and the 
windows.” When Bemis had finished speaking, he gazed 
steadily into Barclay’s eyes. And Bemis saw the fear 
that was in Barclay’s face. “Yes, I know a way into the 
court-house, John — it’s mine by fifty years’ right of dis¬ 
covery. I’m going to have that book, and get an expert 
opinion as to the similarity of the handwriting in the 
book and the handwriting of my own little document. 
My own little document,” he mused, licking his chops like 
a hound at the prospect. 

Now we will call that little document “Exhibit I” in 
the case of the Larger Good vs. The People, and close 
thereby a long and tedious chapter. But we will begin 
another chapter in which the wheels of events spin rapidly 
in their courses toward that moral equilibrium that deeds 
must find before they stop when they are started for the 
Larger Good. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


The spring of 1904 in Sycamore Ridge opened in tur« 
moil. The turmoil came from the contest over the pur- 
chase of the town’s water system. Robert Hendricks as 
president of the Citizens’ League was leading the forces 
that advocated the purchase of the system by the town, 
as being the only sure way to change the water supply 
from the polluted mill-pond to a clean source. Six months 
before he had leased every bill-board in town, and for the 
two months preceding the city election that was to decide 
the question of municipal purchase he had hired every 
available hall in town, for every vacant night during those 
months, and had bought half of the first page of both the 
Banner and the Index for those months—and all of this 
long before the town knew the fight was coming. He 
covered the bill-boards and the first pages of the news¬ 
papers with analyses of the water in the mill-pond—badly 
infected from the outlet of the town sewers and its sur¬ 
face drainage. The Citizens’ League filled the halls with 
speakers demanding the purchase of the plant and the re¬ 
moval of the pumping station to a place several miles 
above the town, and four beyond the mill-pond. Judge 
Bemis, with the aid and abetment of John Barclay, 
who was in the game to help his old friend, put up ban¬ 
ners denouncing Hendricks as a socialist, accusing him of 
being the town boss, and charged through the columns of 
the Index that Hendricks’ real motive in desiring to have 
the city take over the waterworks system was to make 
money on the sale of the city’s bonds. So Hendricks 
was the centre of the fight. 

In the first engagement, a malicious contest, Hendricks 
lost. The town refused to vote the bonds to buy the 
plant. But at the same election the same people elected 

365 


366 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


a city council overwhelmingly in favour of municipal own¬ 
ership and in favour of compelling the operating company 
to move its plant from the mill-pond. The morning after 
the election Hendricks began a lawsuit as a taxpayer 
and citizen to make the waterworks company move its 
plant. The town could understand that issue, and senti¬ 
ment rallied to Hendricks again. Judge Bemis, at the 
head of the company, although irritated, was not alarmed. 
For in the courts he could promote delays, plead techni¬ 
calities, and wear out his adversary. It was an old game 
with him. Still, the suit disturbed the value of his bonds, 
and having other resources, he gleefully decided to use 
them. 

And thus it fell out that one fine day in April, Trixie Lee, 
from the bedraggled outer hem of the social garment down 
by the banks of the Sycamore, called to the telephone 
Robert Hendricks of the town’s purple and fine linen, who 
dwelt on the hill. He did not recognize her voice, the 
first time she called. But shrewd as Judge Bemis was, 
and bad as he was, he did not know it all. He did not 
know that when Hendricks had received the first anony¬ 
mous letter three days before, he had instructed the girls in 
the telephone office, which lie controlled, to make a record 
of every telephone call for his office or his house, and when 
the woman’s voice on the telephone that day delivered 
Judge Bemis’s message, the moment after she quit talking 
he knew with whom he had been talking. 

“ Is this Mr. Hendricks ? ” the voice had begun, rather 
pleasantly. Yes, it was Mr. Hendricks. “ Well, I am 
your friend, but I don’t dare to let you know my name 
now; it would be all my life is worth.” And Robert 
Hendricks grinned pleasantly into the rubber transmitter 
as he realized that his trap would work. “ Yes, Mr. 
Hendricks, I am your friend, and you have a powerful 
enemy.” What with the insinuations in the Index and 
the venom that Lige Bemis had been putting into anony¬ 
mous circulars during the preliminary waterworks cam¬ 
paign, this was no news to Mr. Hendricks; so he let the 
voice go on, u Tliey want you to dismiss that suit against 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


36? 


the waterworks company that you brought last week.” 
There was a pause for a reply; but none came; then the 
voice said, “Are you there, Mr. Hendricks—do you hear 
me ? ” And Mr. Hendricks said that he heard perfectly. 
“And,” went on the voice, “ as your friend I wish you 
would, too. Do you remember a letter you once wrote to 
a woman, asking her to elope with you — a married woman, 
Mr. Hendricks ? ” There was a pause for a reply, and 
again the voice asked, “ Do you hear, Mr. Hendricks ? ” 
and Mr. Hendricks heard; heard in his soul and was afraid, 
but his voice did not quaver as he replied, “ Yes, I hear 
perfectly.” Then the voice went on, “Well, they have 
that letter — a little note — not over one hundred words, 
and with no date on it, and the man who has it also has a 
photograph of page 234 of a certain ledger in the county 
treasurer’s office for 18T9, and there is an entry there in 
your handwriting, Mr. Hendricks ; and he has had them 
both enlarged to show that the handwriting of the note 
and of the county book are the same ; isn’t that mean, Mr. 
Hendricks ? ” Hendricks coughed into the transmitter, 
and she knew that he was there, so she continued: “ As 
your friend in this matter, I have got them to promise 
that if you will come to the Citizens’ League meeting that 
you have called for to-morrow night at Barclay Hall and 
tell the people that you think we need harmony in the 
Ridge worse than we need this everlasting row, if you will 
merely say to Mr. Barclay as you pass into the meeting, 
6 Well, John, I believe I’ll dismiss that suit,’ you can have 
your letter back. He hasn’t got the letter, but he will be 
sure to tell the news to a friend who has.” Here the 
voice faltered, and said unconsciously, “Wait a minute, 
I’ve lost my place; oh, here it is; all right. And if you 
don’t come to the meeting and say that, I believe they 
are going to spring those documents on the meeting to 
put you in bad odour.” 

“ Is that all ? ” asked Hendricks. 

“ Well — ” a pause and then finally — “ yes,” came the 
voice. 

“Well, my answer is no,” said Hendricks, and while he 


368 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


was trying to get central the voice called again and 
said: — 

“Just one word more: if you still maintain you! 
present decision, a copy of that letter you wrote will be 
put into the hands of Mr. Brownwell cf the Banner before 
the meeting; I tell you this to protect you. He and Mis. 
Brownwell and Mrs. Barclay will be in town to-morrow 
evening on the Barclay car from the West on No. 6; you 
will have until then to reconsider your decision; after 
that you act at your own risk.” 

Again the voice ceased, and Hendricks learned from 
central who had been talking with him. It was after 
banking hours, and he sat for a time looking the situation 
squarely in the face. The reckoning had come. He 
had answered “ no ” with much bravery over the tele¬ 
phone— but in his heart a question began to rise, and his 
decision was clouded. 

Hendricks walked alone under the stars that night, and as 
he walked he turned the situation over and over as one who 
examines a strange puzzle. He saw that his ' k no ” could 
not be his own “no.” Molly must be partner in it. For 
to continue his fight for clean water he must risk her good 
name. He measured Bemis, and remembered the old 
quarrel. The hate in the face of the bribe-giver, thrown 
out of the county convention a quarter of a century before, 
came to Hendricks, and he knew that it was no vain 
threat he was facing. So he turned up the other facet 
of the puzzle. There was Adrian. For an hour he con¬ 
sidered Adrian Brownwell, a vain jealous old man with the 
temper of a beast. To see Molly, tell her of their common 
peril, get her decision, and be with it at the meeting before 
Adrian saw the note, all in the two hours between the arrival 
of .the train bearing the Brownwells and Mrs. Barclay, and 
the time of the meeting in Barclay Hall, was part of Hen¬ 
dricks’ puzzle. He believed that by using the telephone 
to make an appointment he could manage it. Then he 
turned the puzzle over and saw that to save Molly Brown- 
well’s good name and his father’s, human lives must be 
sacrificed by permitting the use of foul water in the town. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


369 


And in the end his mind set. He knew that unless she 
forbade it, the contest must go on to a righteous finish, 
through whatever perils, over any obstacles. Yet as he 
walked back to the bank, determined not to take his hand 
from the plough, he saw that he must prepare to go into the 
next day as though it were his last. For in his conscious¬ 
ness on the other side of the puzzle — always there was 
the foolish Adrian, impetuous at best, but stark mad in his 
jealousy and wrath. 

And Elijah Westlake Bemis, keeping account of the 
man’s movements, chuckled as he felt the struggle in the 
man’s breast. For he was a wise old snake, that Lige 
Bemis, and he had seduced many another man after the 
brave impulsive “ no ” had roared in his face. Just before 
midnight when he saw the electric light flash on in the 
private office of the president of the Exchange National 
Bank, Lige Bemis, libertine with men, strolled home and 
counted the battle won. “ He’s writing his speech,” he 
said to Barclay over the telephone at midnight. And 
John Barclay, who had fought the local contest in the 
election with Bemis to be loyal to a friend, and to help 
one who was in danger of losing the profit on half a mill¬ 
ion dollars’ investment in the Sycamore Ridge water¬ 
works, laughed as he walked upstairs in his pajamas, and 
said to himself, “ Old Lige is a great one — there is a lot 
of fight in the old viper yet.” It was nothing to Barclay 
that the town got its water from a polluted pond. That 
phase of the case did not enter his consciousness, though 
it was placarded on the bill-boards and had been printed 
in the Banner a thousand times during the campaign. 
To him it was a fight by the demagogues against property 
interests, and he was with property, even a little prop¬ 
erty — even a miserable little dribble of property like 
half a million dollars’ worth of waterworks bonds. 

And Robert Hendricks—playfellow of John Barclay’s 
boyhood, partner of his youth — sat working throughout 
the night, a brave man, going into battle without a tremor. 
He went through his books, made out statements of 
his business relations, prepared directions for the heads 
2b 


370 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


of his different concerns, as a man would do who might 
be going on a long journey. For above everything, 
Robert Hendricks was foresighted. He prepared for 
emergencies first, and tried to avoid them afterwards. 
And with the thought of the smallness of this life in his 
soul, he looked up from his work to see the hard gray 
lines of the dawn in the street outside of his office, bring¬ 
ing the ugly details from the shadows that hid them dur¬ 
ing the day, and he sighed as he wondered in what bourne 
he should see the next dawn break. 

It was a busy day for Robert Hendricks, that next day, 
and through it all his mind was planning every moment 
of the time how he could protect Molly Brown well. Did 
he work in the bank, behind his work his mind was seek¬ 
ing some outlet from his prison. If he went over the 
power-house at the electric plant, always he was looking 
among the wheels for some way of refuge for Molly. 
When he spent an hour in the office of the wholesale 
grocery house, he despatched a day’s work, but never for 
a second was his problem out of his head. He spent two 
hours with his lawyers planning the suit against the 
water company, pointing out new sources of evidence, and 
incidentally leaving a large check to pay for the work. 
But through it all Molly BrownwelTs good name was ever 
before him, and when he thought how twenty years be¬ 
fore he had walked through another day planning, schem¬ 
ing, and contriving, all to produce the climax of calamity 
that was hovering over her to-day, he was sick and faint 
with horror and self-loathing. 

But as the day drew to its noon, Hendricks began to 
feel a persistent detachment from the world about him. 
It floated across his consciousness, like the shadow anchor 
of some cloud far above him. He began to watch the 
world go by. He seemed not to be a part of it. He 
became a spectator. At four o’clock he passed Dolan on 
the street and said, absently, “ I want you to-night at 
the bank at seven o’clock sharp — don’t forget, it’s very 
important.” 

As he walked down Main Street to the bank, the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


371 


shadow anchor of the cloud had ceased to flit across his 
consciousness. Life had grown all gray and dull, and he 
was apart from the world. He saw the handbills an¬ 
nouncing the meeting that night as one who sees a curious 
passing show; the men he met on the street he greeted as 
creatures from another world. Yet he knew he smiled 
and spoke with them casually. But it was not he who 
spoke; the real Robert Hendricks he knew was separated 
from the pantomime about him. When he went into the 
bank at five o’clock, the janitor was finishing his work. 
Hendricks called up the depot on the telephone and found 
that No. 6 was an hour late. With the realization that 
a full hour of his fighting time had been taken from 
him and that the train would arrive only a scant hour 
before the meeting, the Adrian face of his puzzle turned 
insistently toward Hendricks. It was not fear but de¬ 
spair that seized him. The cloud was over him. And for 
want of something to do he wrote. First he wrote ab¬ 
stractedly and mechanically to John Barclay, then to Neal 
Ward — a note for th q Banner —and as the twilight deep¬ 
ened in the room, he squared his chair to the table and 
wrote to Molly Brownwell; that letter was the voice of 
his soul. That was real. Six o’clock struck. Half-past 
six clanged on the town clock, and as Jake Dolan opened 
the bank door, Hendricks heard the roar of the train cross¬ 
ing at the end of Main Street. 

“There goes Johnnie’s private car, switching on the 
tail of her,” said Dolan, standing in the doorway. 

Hendricks sent Dolan to a back room of the bank, and 
at seven-twenty went to the telephone. “Give me 876, 
central,” he called. “ Hello — hello — hello,” he cried 
nervously, “hello — who is this?” The answer came 
and he said, “ Oh, I didn’t recognize your voice.” Then 
he asked in a low tone, as one who had fear in his heart: 
“ Do you recognize me ? If you do, don’t speak my name. 
Where is Adrian?” Then Mr. Dolan, listening in the 
next room, heard this : “You say Judge Bemis phoned to 
him? Oh, he was to meet him at eight o’clock. How long 
ago did he leave ? ” After a moment Hendricks’ answer 


*372 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


was: 44 Then he has just gone; and will not be back?* 
Hendricks cut impatiently into whatever answer came 
with: “Molly, I must see you within the next fifteen 
minutes. I can’t talk any more over the telephone, but 
I must come up.” “Yes,” in a moment, “I must have 
your decision in a matter of great importance to you — 
to you, Molly.” There was a short silence, then Dolan 
heard: “All right, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Then 
Hendricks turned from the telephone and called Dolan in. 
He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and began speaking to 
Dolan, who stood over him. Hendricks’ voice was low, 
and he was repressing the agitation in his heart by main 
strength. 

“ Jake,” he said, talking as rapidly as he could, “I must 
be ungodly frank with you. It doesn’t make any differ¬ 
ence whether he is right or not, but Adrian Brownwell 
may be fooled into thinking he has reason to be jealous of 
me.” Hendricks was biting his mustache. 44 He’s a rag¬ 
ing maniac of jealousy, Jake, but I’m not afraid of him — 
not for myself. I can get him before he gets me, if it 
comes to that, but to do it I'll have to sacrifice Molly. 
And I won’t do that. If it comes to her good name or 
my life — she can have my life.” They were outside now 
and Dolan was unhitching the horse. He knew instinc¬ 
tively that he was not to reply. In a moment Hen¬ 
dricks went on, “Well, there is just one chance in a 
hundred that it may turn that way — her good name or 
my life — and on that chance I’ve written some letters 
here.” He reached in his coat and said, “Now, Jake, 
put these letters in your pocket and if anything goes 
wrong with me, deliver them to the persons whose names 
are on the envelopes — and to no one else. I must trust 
everything to you, Jake,” he said. 

Driving up the hill, he met Bemis coming down town. 
He passed people going to the meeting in Barclay Hall. 
He did not greet them, but drove on. His jaw was set 
hard, and the muscles of his face were firm. As he neared 
the Culpepper home he climbed from the buggy and 
hitched the horse to the block in front of his own house. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


373 


He hurried into the Culpepper yard, past the lilac bushes 
heavy with blooms, and up the broad stone steps with the 
white pillars looming above him. It was a quarter to 
eight, and at that minute Bemis was saying to Adrian 
Brownwell, “ All right, if you don’t believe it, don’t 
take my word for it, but go home right now and see what 
you find.” 

Molly Brownwell met Hendricks on the threshold 
with trembling steps. “Bob, what is it?” she asked. 
They stood in the shadow of the great white pillars, where 
they had parted a generation ago. 

“ It’s this, Molly,” answered Hendricks, as he put his 
hand to his forehead that was throbbing with pain; 
“ Lige Bemis has my letter to you. Yes,” he cried as she 
gasped, “the note—the very note, and to get it I must 
quit the waterworks fight and go to the meeting to-night 
and surrender. I had no right to decide that alone. It 
is our question, Molly. We are bound by the old life—- 
and we must take this last stand together.” 

The woman shrank from Hendricks with horror on her 
face, as he personified her danger. She could not reply 
at once, but stood staring at him in the dusk. As she 
stared, the feeling that she had seen it all before in a 
dream came over her, and the premonition that some 
awful thing was impending shook her to the marrow. 

“Molly, we have no time to spare,” he urged. “I 
must answer Bemis in ten minutes — I can do it by phone., 
But say what you think.” 

“ Why — why — why — Bob — let me think,” she whis¬ 
pered, as one trying to speak in a dream, and that also 
seemed familiar to her. “ It’s typhoid for my poor who 
died like sheep last year,” she cried, “or my good name 
and yours, is it, Bob? Is it, Bob ?” she repeated. 

He put his hand to his forehead again in the old way 
she remembered so well — to temples that were covered 
with thin gray hair — and answered, “Yes, Molly, that’s 
our price.” 

Those were the last words that she seemed to have heard 
before; after that the dialogue was all new to her. She was 


374 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


silent a few agonized seconds and then said, “ I know what 
you think, Bob; you are for my poor; you are brave.” 
He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance. As she 
sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac 
plumes and brought their perfume to her. From down 
the avenue came the whir of wheels and the hurrying click 
of a horse’s hoofs. At length she rose, and said tremu¬ 
lously : “ I stand with you, Bob. May God make the 
blow as light as He can.” 

They did not notice that a buggy had drawn up on the 
asphalt in front of the house. Hendricks put out his 
hand and cried, “Oh, Molly—Molly — Molly — ” and 
she took it in both of hers and pressed it to her lips, and 
as Adrian Brown well passed the lilac thicket in the gather¬ 
ing darkness that is what he saw. Hendricks was halfway 
down the veranda steps before he was aware that Brown- 
well was running up the walk at them, pistol in hand, like 
one mad. Before the man could fire, Hendricks was upon 
him, and had Brownwell’s two hands gripped tightly in 
one of his, holding them high in the air. The little man 
struggled. 

“Don’t scream—for God’s sake, don’t scream,” cried 
Hendricks to the woman in a suppressed voice. Then he 
commanded her harshly, “Go in the house—quick — 
Molly — quick.” 

She ran as though hypnotized by the force of the sug¬ 
gestion. Hendricks had his free hand over Brownwell’s 
mouth and around his neck. The little old man was kick¬ 
ing and wriggling, but Hendricks held him. “Not here, 
you fool, not here. Can’t you see it would ruin her, you 
fool? Not here.” He carried and dragged Brownwell 
across the grass through the shrubbery and into the 
Hendricks yard. No one was passing, and the night had 
fallen. “Now,” said Hendricks, as he backed against a 
pine tree, still holding Brownwell, “ I shall let you go if 
you’ll promise to listen to me just a minute until I tell 
you the whole truth. Molly is innocent, man — absolutely 
innocent, and I’ll show you if you’ll talk for a moment. 
Will you promise, man? ” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


375 


Brown well nodded liis assent; Hendricks looked at him 
steadily for a second and then said, “ All right,’’ and set 
the little man on his feet. The glare of madness came 
into Brownwell’s eyes, and as he turned he came at Hen¬ 
dricks with his pistol drawn. An instant later there was 
a shot. Brownwell saw the amazement flash into Hen¬ 
dricks’ eyes, and then Hendricks sank gently to the foot 
of the pine tree. 

And Molly Brownwell, with the paralysis of terror still 
upon her, heard the shot and then heard footsteps running 
across the grass. A moment later her husband, empty- 
handed, chattering, shivering, and white, stumbled into the 
room. Rage had been conquered by fear. For an 
agonized second the man and woman stared at one another, 
speechless — then the wife cried : — 

“ Oh — oh — why — why — Adrian,” and her voice was 
thick with fear. — 

The man was a-tremble—hands, limbs, body — and his 
mad eyes seemed to shrink from the woman’s gaze. “ Oh, 
God — God — oh, God—” he panted, and fell upon his 
face across the sofa. They heard a hurrying step running 
toward the Hendricks house, there came a frightened, 
choked cry of “Help! ” repeated twice, another and another 
sound of pattering feet came, and five minutes after the 
quaking man had entered the door the whole neighbourhood 
seemed to be alive with running figures hurrying silently 
through the gloom. The thud of feet and the pounding 
of her heart, and the whimpering of the little man who 
lay, face down, on the sofa, were the only sounds in her 
ears. She started to go with the crowd. But Adrian 
screamed to her to stay. 

“ Oh,” he cried, “ he sank so softly — he sank so softly — 
he sank so softly ! Oh, God, oh, God — he sank so softly ! ” 

And the next conscious record of her memory was that 
of Neal Ward bursting into the room, crying, “Aunt 
Molly — Aunt Molly — do you know Mr. Hendricks has 
committed suicide ? They’ve found him dead with a pistol 
by his side. I want some whiskey for Miss Hendricks. 
And they need you right away.” 


376 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


But Molly Brownwell, with what composure she could, 
said, “Adrian is sick, Neal — I can’t — I can’t leave him 
now.” And she called after Neal as he ran toward the 
door, “Tell them, Neal, tell them — why I can’t come.” 
There was a hum of voices in the air, and the sound of a 
gathering crowd. Soon the shuffle and clatter of a thou¬ 
sand feet made it evident that the meeting at Barclay 
Hall had heard the news and was hurrying up the hill. 
The crowd buzzed for an hour, and Molly and Adrian 
Brownwell waited speechless together — he face down 
ward on the sofa, she huddled in a chair by the window. 
And then the crowd broke, slowly, first into small groups 
that moved away together and then turned in a steady 
stream and tramped, tramped, tramped down the hill. 

When the silence had been unbroken a long time, save 
by the rumble of a buggy on the asphalt or by the foot¬ 
steps of some stray passer-by, the man on the sofa lifted 
his head, looked at his wife and spoke, “ Well, Molly?” 

“Well, Adrian,” she answered, “this is the end, I sup¬ 
pose ? ” 

He did not reply for a time, and when he did speak, it 
was in a dead, passionless voice : “ Yes — I suppose so. I 
can’t stay here now.” 

“No — no,” she returned. “ No, you should not stay 
here.” 

He sat up and stared vacantly at her for a while and 
then said, “Though I don’t see why I didn’t leave years 
and years ago ; I knew all this then, as well as I do now.” 

The wife looked away from him as she replied : “ Yes, I 
should have known you would know. I knew your se¬ 
cret and you — ” 

“ My secret,” said Adrian, “ my secret ? ” 

“ Yes — that you came North with your inherited money 
because when you were in the Confederate army you were 
a coward in some action and could not live among your 
own people.” 

“ Who told you,” he asked, “ who told you ? ” 

“ The one who told you I have always loved Bob ; life 
has told me that, Adrian. Just as life has told you my 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


377 


story.” They sat without speaking for a time, and then 
the woman sighed and rose. “ Two people who have 
lived together twenty-five years can have no secrets from 
each other. In a thousand ways the truth comes out.” 

“ I should have gone away a long time ago,” he repeated, 
“ a long time ago ; I knew it, but I didn’t trust my in¬ 
stincts.” 

“ Here comes father,” she said, as the gate clicked. 

They stood together, listening to the slow shuffle of the 
colonel coming up the walk, and the heavy fall of his cane. 
The wife put out her hand and said gently, “ I think I 
have wronged you, Adrian, more than any one else.” 

He did not take her hand but sighed, and turned and went 
up the wide stairway. He was an old man then, and she 
remembered the years when he tripped up gayly, and then 
she looked at her own gray hair in the mirror and saw 
that her life was spent too. 

As the colonel came in gasping asthmatically, he found 
his daughter waiting for him. “ Is Adrian better? ” he 
asked excitedly. “Neal said Adrian was sick.” 

“ Yes, father, he’s upstairs packing. He is going out on 
the four o’clock train.” 

“ Oh,” said the colonel, and then panted a moment before 
asking, “ Has any one told you how it happened ? ” 

“Yes,” she replied, “I know everything. I think I’ll 
run over there now, father.” As she stood in the doorway, 
she said, “Don’t bother Adrian—he’ll need no help.” 

And so Molly Brownwell passed the last night with her 
dead lover. About midnight the bell rang and she went 
to the door. 

“ Ah, madam,” said Jacob Dolan, as he fumbled in his 
pockets, and tried to breathe away from her to hide the 
surcease of his sorrow, “Ah, madam,” he repeated, as he 
suddenly thought to pull off his hat, “ I did not come for 
you — ’twas Miss Hendricks I called for; but I have one 
for you, too. He gave the bundle to me the last thing 
— poor lad, poor lad.” He handed her the letter ad¬ 
dressed to Mrs. Brownwell, and then asked, “ Is the sister 
about ? ” 


378 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


And when he found she could not be seen he went 
away, and Molly Brown well sat by the dead man’s body 
and read: — 

“ My darling — my darling — they will let a dead man 
say that to you — won’t they ? And yet, so far as any 
thought of mine could sin against you, I have been dead 
these twenty years. Yet I know that I have loved you all 
that time, and as I sit alone here in the bank, and take the 
bridle off my heart, the old throb of joy that we both 
knew as children comes back again. It is such a strange 
thing—this life—such a strange thing.” Then there fol¬ 
lowed a burst of passionate regret from the man’s very 
heart, and it is so sacred to a manly love that curbed itself 
for a score of years, that it must not be set down here. 

Over and over Molly Brownwell read the letter and 
then crept out to her lilac thicket and wept till dawn. She 
heard Adrian Brownwell go, but she could not face him, 
and listened as his footsteps died away, and he passed from 
her life. 

And John Barclay kept vigil for the dead with her. As 
he tossed in his bed through the night, he seemed to see 
glowing out of the darkness before him the words Hen¬ 
dricks had written, in the letter that Dolan gave Barclay 
at midnight. Sometimes the farewell came to him:— 

“It is not this man of millions that I wish to be with a 
moment to-night, John—but the boy I knew in the old 
days — the boy who ran with me through the woods at 
Wilson’s Creek, the boy who rode over the hill into the 
world with me that September day forty years ago; the 
boy whose face used to beam eagerly out of yours when 
you sat playing at your old melodeon. I wish to be near 
him a little while to-night. When you get this, can’t you 
go to your great organ and play him back into conscious¬ 
ness and tell him Bob says good-by ? ” 

At dawn Barclay called Bemis out of bed, and before 
sunrise he and Barclay were walking on the terrace in 
front of the Barclay home. 

“Lige,” began Barclay, “did you tell Adrian of that 
note last night?” Bemis grinned his assent. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


379 


i4 And he went home, found Bob there conferring with 
Mrs. Brownwell about his position in the matter, and 
Adrian killed him.” 

u That’s the way I figured it out myself,” replied Bemis. 
laconically, 44 but it’s not my business to say so.” 

44 1 thought you promised me you would just bluff with 
that note and not go so far, Lige Bemis,” said Barclay. 

44 Did he just bluff with me when he called me a boodler 
and threw me downstairs in the county convention ? ” 

44 Then you lied to me, sir,” snapped Barclay. 

44 Oh, hell, John — come off,” sneered Bemis. 44 Haven’t 
I got a right to lie to you if I want to ? ” 

The two men stared at each other like growling dogs 
for a moment, and then Barclay turned away with, 44 What 
is there in the typhoid talk?” 

44 Demagogery — that’s all. Of course there may be 
typhoid in the water; but let ’em boil the water.” 

44 But they won’t.” 

44 Well, then, if they eat too much of your ‘Old Hon¬ 
esty * or drink too much of my water unboiled, they take 
their own risk. You don’t make a breakfast food for 
hogs, and I can’t run my water plant for fools.” 

44 But, Lige,” protested Barclay, 44 couldn’t we hitch up 
the electric plant — ” 

“Hitch up the devil and Tom Walker. John Barclay. 
When the wolves got after you, did I come blubbering to 
you to lay down and take a light sentence?” Barclay 
did not answer. Bemis continued: “Brace up, John — 
what’s turned you baby when we’ve got the whole thing 
won? We didn’t kill Hendricks, did we? Are you full 
of remorse and going to turn state’s evidence ? ” 

Barclay looked at the ground for a time, and said: “I 
believe, Lige, we did kill Bob — if it comes to that; and 
we are morally responsible for — 

“Oh, bag }rour head, John; I’m going home. When 
you can talk some sense, let me know.” 

And Bemis left Barclay standing in the garden looking 
at the sunrise across the mill-pond. Presently the carrier 
boy with a morning paper came around, and in it Barclay 


380 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


read the account of Hendricks’ reported suicide, corrobo 
rated by his antemortem statement, written and delivered 
to Jacob Dolan an hour before he died. 

“When I took charge of the Exchange National Bank,” 
it read, “ I found that my father owed Garrison County 
nine thousand dollars for another man’s taxes, which he, 
my father, had agreed to pay, but had no money to do so. 
The other man insisted on my father forging a note to 
straighten matters up. It seemed at that time that the 
bank would close and the whole county would be ruined if 
my father had not committed that deed. I could not put 
the money back into the treasury without revealing my 
father’s crime, so I let the matter run for a few years, re¬ 
newing the forged note, and then, as it seemed an inter¬ 
minable job of forgery, I forged the balance on the county 
books, one afternoon between administrations in 1879. 
Mr. E. W. Bemis, who is trying to force polluted water 
on Sycamore Ridge, has discovered this forgery and has 
threatened to expose me in that and perhaps other matters. 
So I feel that my usefulness in the fight for pure water in 
the town is ended. I leave funds to fight the matter in 
the courts, and I feel sure that we will win.” 

Barclay sat in the warm morning sun, reading and re¬ 
reading the statement. Finally Jane Barclay, thin, broken 
and faded, on whom the wrath of the people was falling 
with crushing weight, came into the veranda, and put 
her hands on her husband’s shoulders. 

“Come in, John, breakfast is ready.” 

The woman whom the leprosy of dishonest wealth was 
whitening, walked dumbly into the great house, and ate 
in silence. “ I am going to Molly,” she -said simply, as 
the two rose from their meal. “I think she needs me, 
dear; won’t you come, too? ” she asked. 

“I can’t, Jane — I can’t,” cried Barclay. And when 
his wife had pressed him, he broke forth : “ Because Lige 
Bemis made Adrian kill Bob and I helped — ” he groaned, 
and sank into his chair, “and I helped.” 

When Neal Ward came to the office the next morning, he 
found Dolan waiting for him. Ward opened the envelope 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


381 


that Dolan gave him, and found in it the mortgage Hen¬ 
dricks had owned on the Banner office, assigned to Ward, 
and around the mortgage was a paper band on which was 
written: 44 God bless you, my boy—keep up the fight; 
never say die.” 

Then Ward read Adrian Brownwell’s valedictory that 
was hanging on a copy spike before him. It was the 
heart-broken sob of an old man who had run away from 
failure and sorrow, and it need not be printed here. 

On Memorial Day, when they came to the cemetery on 
the hill to decorate the soldiers’ graves, men saw that the 
great mound of lilacs on Robert Hendricks’ grave had with¬ 
ered. The seven days’ wonder of his passing was ended. 
The business that he had left prospered without him, or lan¬ 
guished and died; within a week in all but a dozen hearts 
Hendricks’ memory began to recede into the past, and so, 
where there had been a bubble on the tide, that held in 
its prism of light for a brief bit of eternity all of God’s 
spectacle of life, suddenly there was only the tide moving 
resistlessly toward the unknown shore. And thus it is 
with all of us. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


In the summer of 1904, following the death of Robert 
Hendricks, John Barclay spent much time in the Ridge, 
more time than he had spent there for thirty years. For 
in the City he was a marked man. Every time the market 
quivered, reporters rushed to get his opinion about the 
cause of the disturbance; the City papers were full of 
stories either of his own misdeeds, or of the wrong-doings 
of other men of his caste. His cronies were dying all 
about him of broken hearts or wrecked minds, and it 
seemed to him that the word “indictment ” was in every 
column of every newspaper, was on every man’s lips, and 
literally floated in the air. 

So he remained in Sycamore Ridge much of the time, 
and every fair afternoon he rowed himself up the mill-pond 
to fish. He liked to be alone ; for when he was alone, he 
could fight the battle in his soul without interruption. 
The combat had been gathering for a } T ear; a despair was 
rising in him, that he concealed from his womenkind — 
who were his only intimate associates in those days — as 
if it had been a crime. But out on the mill-pond alone, 
casting minnows for bass, he could let the melancholy in 
his heart rage and battle with his sanity, without let or 
hindrance. Ilis business was doing well; the lawsuits 
against the company in a dozen states were not affecting 
dividends, and the department in charge of his charities 
was forwarding letters of condolence and consolation 
from preachers and college presidents, and men who under 
the old regime had been in high walks of life. Occasion¬ 
ally some conservative newspaper or magazine would 
praise him and his company highly ; but he knew the 
shallowness of all the patter of praise. He knew that he 
paid for it in one way or another, and he grew cynical; 

3S2 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


383 


and in his lonely afternoons on the river, often he laughed 
at the whole mockery of his career, smiled at the thought 
of organized religion, licking his boots for money like a 
dog for bones, and then in his heart he said there is no God. 
Once, to relieve the pain of his soul’s woe, he asked aloud, 
who is God, anyway, and then laughed as he thought that 
the bass nibbling at his minnow would soon think he, 
John Barclay, was God. The analogy pleased him, and 
he thought that his own god, some devilish fate, had the 
string through his gills at that moment and was prepar¬ 
ing to cast him into the fire. Up in the office in the city, 
they went on making senators and governors, and slipping 
a federal judge in where they could, but he had little hand 
in it, for his power was a discarded toy. He sat in his 
boat alone, rowing for miles and miles, from stump to 
stump, and from fallen tree-top to tree-top, hating the 
thing he called God, and distrusting men. 

But when he appeared in the town, or at home, he was 
cheerful enough; he liked to mingle with the people, and 
it fed his despair to notice what a liang-dog way they had 
with him. He knew they had been abusing him behind 
his back, and when he found out exactly what a man had 
said, he delighted in facing the man down with it. 

“So you think John Barclay could have saved Bob 
Hendricks’ life, do you, Oscar?” asked Barclay, as he 
overhauled Fernald coming out of the post-office. 

“ Who said so ? ” asked Fernald, turning red. 

“ Oil,” chuckled Barclay, “ I got it from the hired girls’ 
wireless news agency. But you said it all right—you 
said it, Oscar; you said it over to Ward’s at dinner night 
before last.” And Barclay grinned maliciously. 

Fernald scratched his head, and said, “Well, John, to 
be frank with you, that’s the talk all over town — among 
the people.” 

“The people — the people,” snapped Barclay, impa¬ 
tiently, “the people take my money for bridges and halls 
and parks and churches and statues and then call me a 
murderer — oh, damn the people 1 Who started this 
story ? ” 


384 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ See Jake Dolan, John — it’s up to him. He can sat 
isfy you,” said Fernald, and turned, leaving Barclay in 
the street. 

Up the hill trudged the gray-clad little man, with his 
pugnacious shoulders weaving and his bronzed face set 
hard and his mean jaw locked. On the steps of the court¬ 
house he found Jake Dolan, smoking a morning pipe with 
the loafers in the shade of the building. 

“Here you, Jake Dolan,” called Barclay, “what do 
you mean by accusing me of murdering Bob Hendricks ? 
What did I have to do with it ? ” 

“ Easy, easy, Johnnie, my boy,” returned Dolan, knock¬ 
ing the ashes from his pipe on the steps between his feet. 
“ Gentlemen,” said Dolan, addressing the crowd, “ jrnu’ve 
heard what our friend says. All right — come with me 
to my office, Johnnie Barclay, and I’ll show you.” Bar¬ 
clay followed Dolan into the basement of the court-house, 
with the crowd at a respectful distance. “ Right this 
way — ” and Dolan switched on an electric light. “ Do 
you see that break in the foundation, Mr. Barclay? You 
do ? And you know in your soul that it opens into the 
cave that leads to the cellar of your own house. Well, 
then, Mr. Johnnie Barclay — the book that contained the 
evidence against Bob Hendricks did not go out of this 
court-house by the front door, as you well know, but 
through that hole — stolen at night when I was out; and 
the man who stole it was the horse thief that used to run 
the cave — your esteemed friend, Lige Bemis.” 

The crowd was gaping at the rickety place in the foun¬ 
dation, and one man pulled a loose stone out and let the 
cold air of the cave into the room. 

“ Lige Bemis came to your house, Mr. Johnnie Barclay, 
got into the cave from your cellar, broke through this wall, 
and stole the book that contained the forgery made to 
cover General Hendricks’ disgrace. And who caused 
that disgrace but the overbearing, domineering John Bar¬ 
clay, who made that old man steal to pay John Barclay’s 
taxes, back in the grasshopper year, when the sheriff and 
the jail were almost as familiar to him as they are now, — 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


385 


by all counts. Ah, John Barclay,” said the Irishman, 
turning to the crowd, “John Barclay, John Barclay—< 
you’re a brave little man sometimes; I’ve seen you when 
I was most ungodly proud of you ; I’ve seen you do grand 
things, my little man, grand things. But you’re a coward 
too, Johnnie ; sitting in your own house while your horse- 
thief friend used your cellar to work out the disgrace of 
the man who gave his good name to save your own — 
that was a fine trick —a damn fine trick, wasn’t it, Mr. 
Barclay ? ” 

Barclay started to go, but the crowd blocked his 
way. Dolan saw that Barclay was trying to escape. 
“Turn tail, will you, my little man? Wait one min¬ 
ute,” cried Dolan. “Wait one minute, sir. For what 
was you conniving against the big man ? I know — 
to win your game; to win your miserable little game. 
Ah, what a pup a man can be, Johnnie, what a mangy, 
miserable, cowardly little pup a man can be when he 
tries — and a decent man, too. Money don’t mean any¬ 
thing to you — you got past that, but it’s to win the game. 
Why, man, look at yourself — look at yourself — you’d 
cheat your own mother playing cards with matches for 
counters — just to win the game.” Dolan waved for the 
crowd to break. “ Let him out of here, and get out your¬ 
selves — every one of you. This is public property you’re 
desecrating.” 

Dolan sat alone in his office, pale and trembling aftef 
the crowd had gone. Colonel Culpepper came puffing in 
and saw the Irishman sitting with his head in his hands and 
his elbows on the table. 

“What’s this, Jake — what’s this I hear?” asked tin** 
colonel. 

“ Oh, nothing,” answered Dolan, and then he looked up 
at the colonel with sad, remorseful eyes. “ What a fool — 
what a fool whiskey in a man’s tongue is — what a fool.” 
He reached under his cot for his jug, and repeated as he 
poured the liquor into a glass, “ What a fool, what a fool, 
what a fool.” And then, as he gulped it down and made 
a wry face, “ Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn’t mean 


386 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


to hit him so hard — not half so hard. What a fool, what 
a fool,” and the two old men started off for the harness 
shop together. 

Neal Ward that night, in the Banner office alone, wrote to 
his sweetheart the daily letter that was never mailed. 

“ How sweet it is,” lie writes, “ to have you at home. Sometimes I 
hear your voice through the old leaky telephone, talking to Aunt 
Molly; her phone and ours are through the same board, and your voice 
seems natural then, and unstrained, not as it is when we meet. But I 
know that some way we are meeting — our souls — in the infinite realm 
outside ourselves — beyond our consciousness — either sleeping or wak¬ 
ing. Last night I dreamed a strange dream. A little girl, like one of 
the pictures in mother’s old family photograph album, seemed to be 
talking w ith me,— dressed so quaintly in the dear old fashion of the days 
when mother taught the Sycamore Ridge School. She seemed to be 
playing with me in some way, and then she said: ‘ Oh, yes, I am your 
telephone; she knows all about it. I tell her every night as we play to¬ 
gether.* And then she was no longer a little girl but a most beautiful 
soul and she said with great gentleness : ‘ In her heart she loves you — 
in her heart she loves you. This I know’, only she is proud—proud 
with the Barclay pride; but in her heart she loves you; is not that 
enough?’ What a strange dream! I w’onder where we are—we 
who animate our bodies, when we sleep. What is sleep, but the proof 
that death is but a sleep? Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette, come into my soul 
as we sleep.” 

He folded the letter, sealed and addressed it, and dated 
the envelope, and put it in his desk—the desk before which 
Adrian Brownwell had sat, eating his heart out in futile 
endeavour to find his place in the world. Neal Ward had 
cleaned out one side of the desk, and was using that for 
his own. Mrs. Brownwell kept her papers in the other 
side, and one key locked them both. As he walked home 
that night under the stars, his heart was full of John Bar¬ 
clay’s troubles. Neal knew Barclay well enough to know 
that the sensitive nature of the man, with his strongly de¬ 
veloped instinctive faculty for getting at the truth, would 
be his curse in the turmoil or criticism through which he 
was going. So a day or two later Neal was not surprised 
to find a long statement in the morning press despatches 
from Barclay explaining and defending the methods of the 
National Provisions Company. He proved carefully that 
the notorious Door Strip saved large losses in transit of the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


387 


National Provisions Company’s grain and grain produce, 
and showed that in paying him for the use of these strips 
the railroad companies were saving great sums for widowed 
and orphaned stockholders of railroads — sums which 
would be his due for losses in transit if the strips were 
not used. 

Neal Ward knew what it had cost Barclay in pride to give 
out that statement; so the young man printed it on the 
first page of the Banner with a kind editorial about Mr. 
Barclay and his good works. That night when the paper 
was off, and young Ward was working on the books of his 
office, he was called to the telephone. 

“ Is this you, Nealie Ward ? ” asked a woman’s voice — 
the strong, clear, deep voice of an old woman. And when 
he had answered, the voice went on: “ Well, Nealie, I wish 
to thank you for that editorial about John to-night in the 
paper ; I’m Mary Barclay. It isn’t more than half true, 
Nealie ; and if it was all true, it isn’t a fraction of what 
the truth ought to be if John did what he could, but it 
will do him a lot of good — right here in the home paper, 
and— Wh} T , Jennie, I’m speaking with Nealie Ward,— 
why, do yon think I am not old enough to talk with Nealie 
without breeding scandal ? — as I was saying, my dear, it 
will cheer John up a little, and heaven knows he needs 
something. I’m— Jennie, for mercy sakes keep still; I 
know Nealie Ward and I knew his father when he wasn’t 
as old as Nealie — did his washing for him ; and boarded 
his mother four winters, and I have a right to say what I 
want to to that child.” The boy and the grandmother 
laughed into the telephone. “Jennie is so afraid I’ll do 
something improper,” laughed Mrs. Barclay. “ Oh, yes, 
by the way —- here’s a little item for your paper to-mor¬ 
row : Jennie’s mother is sick ; I think it’s typhoid, but 
you can’t get John to admit it. So don’t say typhoid.” 
Then with a few more words she rang off. 

When the Banner printed the item about Mrs. Barclay’s 
illness, the town, in one of those outbursts of feeling which 
communities often have, seemed to try to show John Bar¬ 
clay the affection that was in their hearts for the man who 


388 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


had grown up among them, and the family that had been 
established under his name. Flowers — summer flowers 
— poured in on the Barclays. Children came with wild 
flowers, prairie flowers that Jane Barclay had not seen 
since she roamed over the unbroken sod about Min- 
neola as a girl; and Colonel Culpepper came marching up 
the walk through the Barclay grounds, bearing his old- 
fashioned bouquet, as grandly as an ambassador bringing 
a king’s gift. Jane Barclay sent word that she wished to 
see him. 

“ My dear,” said the colonel, as he held the flowers to¬ 
ward her, “ accept these flowers from those who have 
shared your bounty — from God’s poor, my dear ; these 
are God’s smiles that they send you from their hearts — 
from their very hearts, my dear, from their poor hearts 
wherein God’s smiles come none too often.” She saw 
through glistening eyes the broken old figure, with his 
coat tightly buttoned on that July day to hide some shab¬ 
biness underneath. But she bade the colonel sit down, 
and they chatted of old times and old places and old faces 
for a few minutes ; and the colonel, to whom any sort of 
social function was a rare and sweet occasion, stayed until 
the nurse had to beckon him out of the room over Mrs. 
Barclay’s shoulder. 

General Ward sent a note with a bunch of monthly 
blooming roses. 

“My dear Jane (he wrote) : “ These roses are from slips we got 
from John’s mother when we planted our little yard. This red one 
is from the very bush on which grew the rose John wore at his wed¬ 
ding. Pin it on the old scamp to-night, and see how he will look. He 
was a dapper little chap that night, and the years have hardly begun 
their work on him; or perhaps lie is such a tough customer that he 
dulls the chisel of time. I do not know, and so long as it is so, you do 
not care, but we both know, and are both glad that of all the many 
things God has sent you in thirty years, he has sent you nothing so 
fine as the joy that came with the day John w r ore this rose for you — a 
joy that has grown while the rose has faded. And may this rose 
renew your joy for another thirty years.” 

John read the note when he came in from the mill that 
evening, and Jane watched the years slip off his face. He 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


389 


looked into tlie past as it spread itself on the carpet near 
the bed. 

“ Well, well, well,” he said, as he smiled into the pic¬ 
ture he saw, 44 I remember as well the general bringing 
that rose down to the office that morning, wrapped in blue 
tissue paper from cotton batting rolls ! The package was 
tied with fancy red braid that used to bind muslin bolts.” 
He laughed quietly, and asked, 44 Jane, do you remember 
that old red braid?” The sick woman nodded. 44 Well, 
with the little blue package was a note from Miss Lucy, 
which said that my old teacher could not give me a pres¬ 
ent that year — times were cruelly hard then, you remem¬ 
ber— but that she could and did put the blessing of her 
prayers on the rose, that all that it witnessed at my wed¬ 
ding would bring me happiness.” He sat for a moment 
in silence, and, as the nurse was gone, he knelt beside the 
sick woman and kissed her. And as the wife stroked his 
head she whispered, 44 How that prayer has been answered, 
John — dear,hasn’t it?” And the great clock in the silent 
hall below ticked away some of the happiest minutes it had 
ever measured. 

But when he passed out of the sick room, the world — 
the maddening press of affairs, and the combat in his soul 
— snapped back on his shoulders with a mental click as 
though a load had fallen into its old place. He stood 
before his organ, and could not press the keys. As he 
sat there in the twilight made by the shaded electric lamps, 
the struggle rose in his heart against the admission of 
anything into his scheme of life but material things, and 
the conflict raged unchecked. What a silliness, he said, 
to think that the mummery of a woman over a rose could 
affect a life. Life is what the succession of the days brings. 
The thing is or is not, he said to himself, and the gibber 
about prayer and the moral force that moves the universe 
is for the weak-minded. So he took his hell to bed with 
him as it went every night, and during the heavy hours 
when he could not sleep, he tiptoed into the sick room, and 
looked at the thin face of his wife, sleeping a restless, 
feverish sleep, and a great fear came into his heart. 


390 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Once as the morning dawned he asked the nurse whom 
he met in the hall, “Is it typhoid?” 

She was a stranger to the town, and she said to him* 
“ What does the doctor tell you ? ” 

“That’s not the point,” he insisted. “What do you 
think ? ” 

She looked at him for an undecided moment and replied. 
“I’m not paid to think, Mr. Barclay,” and went past him 
with her work. But he knew the truth. He went to his 
bed, and threw himself upon it, a-tremble with remorse and 
fear, and the sneer in his heart stilled his lips and he could 
not look outside himself for help. So the morning came, 
and another day, bringing its thousand cares, faced him, 
like a jailer with his tortures. 

Time dragged slowly in the sick room and at the mill. 
One doctor brought another, and the Barclay private car 
went far east and came flying back with a third. The town 
knew that Mrs. John Barclay was dangerously sick. There 
came hopeful days when the patient’s mind was clear; on 
one of these days Mrs. McHurdie called, and they let her 
see the sick woman. She brought some flowers. 

“ In the flowers, Jane,” she said, “ you will find some¬ 
thing from Watts.” Mrs. McHurdie smiled. “ You know 
he sat up till ’way after midnight last night, playing his 
accordion. Oh, it’s been years since he has touched it. 
And this morning when I got up, I found him sitting by 
the kitchen table, writing. It’s a poem for you.” Mrs. 
McHurdie looked rather sheepish as she said: “ You know 
how Watts is, Jane; he just made me bring it. You can 
read it when you get well.” 

They hurried Mrs. McHurdie out, and when Jane Bar¬ 
clay went to sleep, they found tears on her pillow, and in 
her hand the verses, — the limping, awkward verses of an 
old man, whose music only echoed back from the past. 
The nurses and the young doctor from Boston had a good 
laugh at it. Each of the four stanzas began with two 
lines that asked : “ Oh, don’t you remember the old river 
road, that ran through the sweet-scented wood?” To 
them it was a curious parody on something old and quaint 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


39i 


that they had long since forgotten. But to the woman 
who lay murmuring of other days, whose lips were parched 
for the waters of brooks that had surrendered to the 
plough a score of years ago, the halting verses of Watts 
McHurdie were laden with odours of grape blossoms, of 
wild cucumbers and sumach, of elder blossoms, and the 
fragrance of the crushed leaves of autumn. And the 
music of distant ripples played in her feverish brain and 
the sobbing voice of the turtle dove sang out of the past 
for her as she slept. All through the day and the night 
and for many nights and da} r s she whispered of the trees 
and the running water and the wild grass and the birds. 

And so one morning when it was still gray, she 
woke and said to John, who bent over her, “ Why, dear, 
we are almost home ; there are the lights across the river; 
just one more hill, dearie, and then — ” And then with 
the water prattling in her ears at the last ford she turned 
to the wall and sank to rest. 

Day after day, until the days and nights became a 
week and the week repeated itself until nearly a month 
was gone, John Barclay, dry-eyed and all but dumb, 
paced the terrace before his house by night, and by day 
roamed through the noisy mill or wandered through his 
desolate house, seeking peace that would not come to him. 
The whole foundation of his scheme of life was crumbling 
beneath him. He had built thirty-five years of his man¬ 
hood upon the theory that the human brain is the god of 
things as they are and as they must be. The structure of 
his life was an imposing edifice, and men called it great and 
successful. Yet as he walked his lonely way in those black 
days that followed Jane’s death, there came into his conscious¬ 
ness a strong, overmastering conviction, which he dared not 
accept, that his house was built on sand. For here were 
things outside of his plans, outside of his very beliefs, com¬ 
ing into his life, bringing calamity, sorrow, and tragedy with 
them into his own circle of friends, into his own household, 
into his own heart. As he walked through the dull, lonely 
hours he could not escape the vague feeling, though he 
fought it as one mad fights for his delusion, that all the 


392 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


tragedies piling up about him came from his own mistakes 
Over and over again he threshed the past. Molly Brown- 
well’s cry, “ You have sold me into bondage, John 
Barclay,” would not be stilled, though at times he could 
smile at it ; and the broken body and shamed face of her 
father haunted him like an obsession. Night after night 
when he tried to sleep, Robert Hendricks’ letter burned 
in fire before his eyes, and at last so mad was the struggle 
in his soul that he hugged these things to him that he 
might escape the greater horror: the dreadful red head¬ 
lines in the sensational paper they had sent him from the 
City office which screamed at him, “John Barclay slays 
his wife — Aids a water franchise grab that feeds the 
people typhoid germs and his own wife dies of the fever.” 
He had not replied to the letter from the law department 
of the Provisions Company which asked if he wished to 
sue for libel, and begged him to do so. He had burned 
the paper, but the headlines were seared into his brain. 

Over and over he climbed the fiery ladder of his sins* 

the death of General Hendricks, the sacrifice of Mollv 

%/ 

Culpepper, the temptation and fall of her father, the death 
of his boyhood’s friend, and then the headlines. These 
things were laid at his door, and over and over again, like 
Sisyphus rolling the stones uphill, he swept them away 
from his threshold, only to find that they rolled right back 
again. And with them came at times the suspicion that 
his daughter’s unhappiness was upon him also. And 
besides these things, a hundred business transactions 
wherein he had cheated and lied for money rose to disturb 
him. And through it all, through his anguish and shame, 
the faith of his life kept battling for its dominion. 

Once he sent for Bemis and tried to talk himself into 
peace with his friend. He did not speak of the things 
that were corroding his heart, but he sat by and heard 
himself chatter his diabolic creed as a drunkard watches 
his own folly. 

“ Lige,” he said, “ I’m sick of that infernal charities 
bureau we’ve got. I’m going to abolish it. These phil¬ 
anthropic millionaires make me sick at the stomach, Lige 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


393 


What do they care for the people ? They know what I 
know, that the damn people are here to be skinned.” He 
laughed viciously and went on : “ Sometimes I think we 

filthy rich are divided into two classes: those of us who 
keep mistresses, and those of us who have harmless 
little entanglements with preachers and college presidents. 
Neither the lemon-haired women nor the college presidents 
interfere with our business; they don’t hamper us — not 
the slightest. They just take our money, and for a few 
idle hours amuse us, and make us feel that we are good 
fellows. As for me, I’ll have neither women nor college 
presidents purring around my ankles. I’m going to cut 
out the philanthropy appropriation to-day.” 

And he was as good as his word. But that did not 
help. The truth kept wrenching his soul, and his feet 
blindly kept trying to find a path to peace. 

It was late one night in August, and a dead moon was 
hanging in the south, when, treading the terrace before his 
house, he saw a shadow moving down the stairway in the 
hall. At first his racked nerves quivered, but when he 
found that it was his mother, he went to meet her, exclaim¬ 
ing as he mounted the steps to the veranda, “ Why, 
mother, what is it — is anything wrong?” 

Though it was past midnight, Mary Barclay was dressed 
for the day. She stood in the doorway with the dimmed 
light behind her, a tall, strong woman, straight and gaunt 
as a Nemesis. u No, John — nothing is wrong — in the 
house.” She walked into the veranda and began as she 
approached a chair, “Sit down, John; I wish to talk with 
you.” 

“Well, mother-—what is it?” asked the son, as he sat 
facing her. 

She paused a moment looking earnestly at his face and re¬ 
plied, “The time has come when we must talk this thing 
out, John, soul to soul.” 

He shrank from what was coming. His instinct told 
him to fight away the crisis. He began to palaver, but 
his mother cut him short, as she exclaimed : — 

“ Why don’t you let Him in, John ? ” 


394 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“ Let who in ? ” asked her son. 

“ You know Whom, John Barclay ; that was your grand 
father speaking then, the old polly foxer. You know, 
my boy. Don’t you remember me bending over the town 
wash-tub when you were a child, Johnnie? Don’t you 
remember the old song I used to sing — of course you do, 
child—as I rubbed the clothes on the board: ‘Let Him 
in, He is your friend, let Him in,,He is your friend ; He 
will keep you to the end—let — Him — in!’ Of course 
you remember it, boy, and you have been fighting Him with 
all your might for six months now, and since Jane went, 
the fight is driving you crazy — can’t you see, John ? ” 

The son did not reply for a moment, then he said, “ Oh, 
well, mother, that was all right in that day, but — ” 

“John Barclay,” cried the mother sternly, as she leaned 
toward him, “ the faith that bore your father a martyr to 
the grave, sustained me in this wilderness, and kept me 
happy as I scrubbed for your bread, shall not be scoffed in 
my presence. We are going to have this thing out to-night. 
I, who bore you, and nursed you, and fed you, and staked 
my soul on your soul, have some rights to-night. Here 
you are, fifty-four years old, and what have you done ? 
You’ve killed your friend and your friend’s father before 
him — I know that, John. You’ve wrecked the life of the 
sister of your first sweetheart, and put fear and disgrace in 
her father’s face forever—forever, John Barclay, as long 
as he lives. I know that too; I haven’t been wrapped 
in pink cotton all these years, boy—I’ve lived my own 
life since you left my wing, and made my own way too, 
as far as that goes. And now you are trying to quench 
the fires of remorse in your soul because your wife died a 
victim of your selfish, ruthless, practical scheme of things. 
More than that, my son — more than that, your child is 
suffering all the agony that a woman can suffer because 
of your devilish system of traffic in blood for money. 
You know what I mean, John. That boy told the truth, 
as you admit, and he could either run or lie, and for 
being a man you have broken up a God-sent love merely 
to satisfy your own vanity. Oh, John — John,” she 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


395 


cried passionately, “ my poor, blind, foolish boy—haven't 
you found the ashes in the core of your faith yet—aren't 
you ready to quit?” 

He began, 44 Don’t you think, mother, I have suffered — 

44 Suffered, boy ? Suffered ? Of course you have suf¬ 
fered, John,” she answered, taking his hands in hers. 44 1 
have seen the furnace fires smoking your face, and I know 
you have suffered, Johnnie ; that’s why I am coming to 
you — to ask you to quit suffering. Look at it, my boy 
— what are you suffering for ? Is it material power you 
want ? Well, you have never had it. The people are 
going right along running their own affairs in spite of you. 
All your nicely built card houses are knocked over. In 
the states and in the federal government, in spite of your 
years of planning and piecing out your little practical 
system, at the very first puff of God’s breath it goes to 
pieces. The men whom you bought and paid for don’t 
stay bought — do they, my boy ? Oh, your old mother 
knows, John. Men who will sell are never worth buying ; 
and the house that relies on them falls. You have built 
a sand dam, son — like the dams you used to build in the 
spring stream when you were a child. It melts under 
pressure like straw. You have no worldly power. In 
this practical world you are a failure, and good old Phil 
Ward, who went out into the field and scattered seeds of 
discontent at your system — he is seeing his harvest ripen 
in his old age, John,” she cried. 44 Can’t you see your 
failure ? Look at it from a practical standpoint : what 
thing in the last thirty years have you advocated, and 
Philemon Ward opposed, that to-day he has not realized 
and you lost ? His prescription for the evils may have 
been wrong many times, but his diagnosis of them was 
always right, and they are being cured, in spite of all 
your protest that they did not exist. Which of you has 
won his practical fight in this practical world — his God 
or your God ; the ideal world or the material world, boy ? 
Can’t you see it ? ” The old woman leaned forward and 
looked in her son’s dull, unresponsive face. 44 Can’t you 
see how you have failed ? ” she pleaded. 


390 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


They rose together and began to pace the long floor of 
$lie veranda. “ Oh, mother,” he cried, as he put his arm 
about her, “ I am so lonely-—so tired, so sick in the heart 
©f me.” 

They didn’t speak for a time, but walked together in 
silence. At length the mother began again. “John,” she 
said, as they turned at the end of the porch, “ I suppose 
you are saying that you have your money — that it is 
material-—solid, substantial, and undeniable. But is it? 
Isn’t it all a myth ? Leave it where it is — in the shape 
of securities and stocks and credits — what will it do? 
Will it bring Jane back? • Will it give Jeanette her heart’s 
desire, and make her happy all her life ? You know, dear, 
that it will only make me miserable. Has it made you 
happy, John ? Turn it into gold and pile it up in the front 
yard — and what will it buy that poor Phil Ward has not 
had all of his life — good food, good clothing—good enough, 
at least— a happy family, useful children, and a good name ? 
A good name, John, is rather to be chosen than great 
riches — than all your money, my son — rather to be 
chosen than all your money. Can you buy that with your 
millions piled on millions?” 

They were walking slowly as she spoke, and they turned 
into the terrace. There they stood looking at the livid 
moon sinking behind the great house. 

“ Is there more joy in this house than in any other house 
in town, John — answer me squarely, son—answer me,” 
she cried. He shook his head sadly and sighed. “A 
mother, whose heart bleeds every hour as she sees her son 
torturing himself with footless remorse; that is one. A 
heartbroken, motherless girl, whose lover has been torn 
away from her by her father’s vanity and her own pride, 
and whose mother has been taken as a pawn in the game 
her father played with no motive, no benefit, nothing but 
to win his point in a miserable little game of politics; that 
is number two. And a man who should be young for 
twenty years yet, who should have been useful for thirty 
years — and now what is he ? powerless, useless, wretched, 
lonely, who spends his time walking about fighting against 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


397 


God, that he may prove his own wisdom and nothing 
more.” 

“ Mother,” cried Barclay, petulantly, “ I can’t stand 
this — that you should turn on me —now.” He broke 
away from her, and stood alone. “ When I need you most, 
you reproach me. When I need sympathy, you scorn all 
that I have done. You can’t prove your God. Why 
should I accept Him ? ” 

The gaunt old woman stretched out her arms and cried : 
“ Oh, John Barclay, prove your god. Tell him to come 
and give you a moment’s happiness-—set him to work to 
restore your good name ; command him to make Jeanette 
happy. These things my God can do I Let your Mam¬ 
mon,” she cried with all the passion of her soul, “let your 
Mammon come down and do one single miracle like that.” 
Her voice broke and she sobbed. “ What a tower of Ba¬ 
bel— an industrial Babel, you are building, John — you 
and your kith and kind. The last century gave us Scho¬ 
penhauers and Kants, all denying God, and this one gives 
us Railroad Kings and Iron Kings and Wheat Kings, all 
by their works proclaiming that Mammon has the power 
and the glory and the Kingdom. O ye workers of iniq 
uity!” she cried, and her voice lifted, “ye wicked and 
perverse — ” 

She did not finish, but broken and trembling, her strength 
spent and her faith scorned, she sank on her knees by a 
marble urn on the terrace and sobbed and prayed. When 
she rose, the dawn was breaking, and she looked for a mo 
ment at her son, who had been sitting near her, and cried: 
“ Oh, my boy, my little boy that I nursed at my breast — 
let Him in, He is your friend — and oh, my God, sustain 
my faith I ” 

Her son came to her side and led her into the house. 
But he went to his room and began the weary round, bat¬ 
tling for his own faith. 

As he stood by his open window that day at the mill, he 
saw Molly Brown well across the pond, going into his home. 
He watched her idly and saw Jeanette meet her at the 
door, and then as his memory went back to the old 


398 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


days, lie tried to find tears for the woman who had died, 
but he could only rack his soul. Tears were denied to 
him. 

He was a rich man — was John Barclay ; some people 
thought that, taking his wealth as wealth goes, all carefully 
invested in substantial things — in material things, let us 
say—he was the richest man in the Mississippi Valley. 
He bought a railroad that day when he looked through 
the office window at Molly Brown well — a railroad three 
thousand miles long. And he bought a man’s soul in a 
distant city — a man whom he did not know even by name, 
but the soul was thrown in “to boot” in a bargain; and 
he bought a woman’s body whose face he had never seen, 
and that went as part of another trade he was making and 
he did not even know they had thrown it in. And he 
bought a child’s life, and he bought a city’s prosperity in 
another bargain, and bought the homage of a state, and 
the tribute of a European kingdom, as part of the day’s 
huckstering. But with all his wealth and power, he could 
not buy one tear — not one little, miserable tear to moisten 
his grief-dried heart. For tears, just then, were a trifle 
high. So Mr. Barclay had to do without, though the man 
whose soul he bought wept, and the woman whose body 
came with a trade, sobbed, and the dead face of the child 
was stained with a score of tears. 

They went to Jeanette Barclay’s room, — the gray¬ 
haired woman and the girl, — and they sat there talking 
for a time — talking of things that were on their lips and 
not in their hearts. Each felt that the other understood 
her. And each felt that something was to be said. For 
one day before the end Jeanette’s mother had said to 
her: “Jennie, if I am not here always go to Molly — ask 
her to tell you about her girlhood.” The mother had rested 
for awhile, and then added, “Tell her I said for you to 
ask her, and she’ll know what I mean.” 

“Jeanette,” said Molly Brownwell, “your mother and 
I were girls together. Your father saw more of her at 
our house than he did at her own home, until they married. 
Did you know that ? ” Jeanette nodded assent. “ So one 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


399 


day last June she said to me, ‘Molly, sometime I wish 
you would tell Jennie all about you and Bob.’ ” 

Mrs. Brown well paused, and Jeanette said, “Yes, mother 
told me to ask you to, Aunt Molly.” Tears came into 
the daughter’s eyes, and she added, “ I think she knew 
even then that — ” 

And then it all came back, and after a while the elder 
woman was saying, “ Well, once upon a time there lived a 
princess, my dear. All good stories begin so — don’t they ? 
She was a fat, pudgy little princess who longed to grow 
up and have hoop-skirts like a real sure-enough woman 
princess, and there came along a tall prince — the tallest, 
handsomest prince in all the wide world, I think. And 
he and the princess fell in love, as princesses and princes 
will, you know, my dear, — just as they do now, I am 
told. And the prince had to go away on business and be 
gone a long, long time, and while he was gone the father 
of the princess and the friend of the prince got into trouble 
— and the princess thought it was serious trouble. She 
thought the father of the prince would have to go to jail 
and maybe the prince and his friend fail. My, my, Jean¬ 
ette, what a big word that word fail seemed to the little fat 
princess ! So she let a man make love to her who could 
lend them all some money and keep the father out of jail 
and the prince and his friend from the awful fate of failure. 
So the man lent the money and made love, and made love. 
And the little princess had to listen; every one seemed to 
like to have her listen, so she listened and she listened, 
and she was a weak little princess. She knew she had 
wronged the prince by letting the man make love to her, 
and her soul was smudged and — oh, Jeanette, she was 
such a foolish, weak, miserable little princess, and they 
didn’t tell her that there is only one prince for every prin¬ 
cess, and one princess for every prince — so she took the 
man, and sent away the prince, and the man made love 
ever so beautifully — but it was not the real thing, my 
dear, — not the real thing. And afterwards when she 
saw the prince — so young and so strong and so handsome, 
her heart burned for him as with a flame, and she was not 


400 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


ashamed; the wicked, wicked princess, she didn’t know. 
And so they walked together one night right up to tha 
brink of the bad place, dearie — right up to the brink; 
and the princess shuddered back, and saved the prince. 
Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette, Jeanette,” sobbed the woman, in 
the girl’s arms, “right in this room, in this very room, 
which was your mother’s room in the old house, I came 
out of the night, as bad a woman as God ever sent away 
from Him. And your mother and I cried it out, and 
talked it out, and I fought it out, and won. Oh, I won, 
Jeanette — I won ! ” 

The two women were silent for a time, and then the 
elder went on: “That’s what your mother wished you to 
know — that for every princess there is just one real 
prince, and for every prince there is just one real prin¬ 
cess, my dear, and when you have found him, and know 
he is true, nothing — not money, not friends, not father 
nor mother — when he is honest, not even pride — should 
stand between you. That is what your mother sent you, 
dearie. Do you understand ? ” 

“ I think I do, Aunt Molly — I think so,” repeated the 
girl. She looked out of the window for a moment, and 
then cried, “ Oh, Aunt Molly — but I can’t, I can’t. How 
could he, Aunt Molly — how could he?” The girl buried 
her face in the woman’s lap, and sobbed. 

After a time the elder woman spoke. “You know he 
loves you, don’t 3 ^ 011 , dear? ” 

The girl shook her head and cried, “ But how could 
he?” and repeated it again and again. 

“ And you still love him — I know that, my dear, or 
you could not — you would not care, either,” she added. 

And so after a time the tears dried, as tears will, and 
the two women fell back into the pale world of surfaces, 
and as Molly Brownwell left she took the girl’s hand and 
said: “ You won’t forget about the little pudgy princess 
— the dear, foolish, little weak princess, will you, Jean¬ 
ette ? And, dearie,” she added as she stood on the lower 
steps of the porch, “ don’t — don’t always be so proud — 
not about that, my dear — about everything else in the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


401 


world, but not about that.” And so she went back into 
the world, and ceased to be a fairy godmother, and took 
up her day’s work. 

John Barclay went to the City that night for the first 
time in two months, and Jeanette and her Grandmother 
Barclay kept the big house alone. In ten days he came 
back; his face was still hard, and the red rims around his 
eyes were dry, and his voice was sullen, as it had been for 
many weeks. His soul was still wrestling with a spirit 
that would not give up the fight. That night his daughter 
tried to sit with him, as she had tried many nights before. 
They sat looking at the stars in silence as was their wont. 
Generally the father had risen and walked away, but that 
night he turned upon her and said: — 

“Jeanette, don’t you like to be rich? I guess you are 
the richest girl in this country. Doesn’t that sound good 
to you? ” 

“No, father,” she answered simply, and continued, 
“ What can I do with all that money? ” 

“ Marry some man who’s got sense enough to double it, 
and double it,” cried Barclay, harshly. “ Then there’ll be 
no question but that you’ll be the richest people in the 
world.” 

“ And then what ? ” asked the girl. 

“Then—then,” he cried, “make the people in this 
world stand around — that’s what.” 

“ But, father,” she said as she put her hand on his arm, 
“what if I don’t want them to stand around? Why 
should I have to bother about it ? ” 

“ Oh,” he groaned, “ your grandmother has been filling 
you full of nonsense.” He did not speak for a time, and 
at length she rose to go to bed. “Jeanette,” he cried so 
suddenly that it startled her, “ are you still moping after 
Neal Ward? Do you love him? Do you want me to go 
and get him for you? ” 

The girl stood by her father’s chair a moment and then 
answered colourlessly: “No, father, I don’t want you to 
get him for me. I am not moping for him, as you call 

it.” 


402 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Her desolate tone reached some chord in his very heart, 
for he caught her hand, and put it to his cheek and said 
softly, 44 But she loves him — my poor little girl loves 
him? ” 

She tried to pull away her hand and replied, in the same 
dead voice: 44 Oh, well — that doesn’t matter much, I sup 
pose. It’s all over — so far as I am concerned.” She 
turned to leave him, and he cried: — 

44 My dear, my dear— why don’t you go to him ? ” 

She stopped a moment and looked at her father, and 
even in the starlight she could see his hard mouth and hi 
ruthless jaw. Then she cried out, 44 Oh, father, I can’t — 
I can’t — ” After a moment she turned and looked at 
him, and asked, 44 Would you? Would you? ” and walked 
into the house without waiting for an answer. 

The father sat crumpled up in his chair, listening to the 
flames crackling in his heart. The old negation was fight¬ 
ing for its own, and he was weary and broken and sick as 
with a palsy of the soul. For everything in him trembled. 
There was no solid ground under him. He had visited 
his material kingdom in the City, and had seen its strong 
fortresses and had tried all of its locks and doors, and 
found them firm and fast. But they did not satisfy his 
soul; something within him kept mocking them; refus¬ 
ing to be awed by their power, and the eternal “yes” 
rushed through his reason like a great wind. 

As he sat there, suddenly, as from some power outside, 
John Barclay felt a creaking of his resisting timbers, and 
he quit the struggle. His heart was lead in his breast, 
and he walked through the house to his pipe organ, that 
had stood silent in the hall for nearly a year. He stood 
hesitatingly before it for a second, and then wearily lay 
him down to rest, on a couch beside it, where, when he had 
played the last time, Jane lay and listened. He was tired 
past all telling, but his soul was relaxed. He lay there 
for hours — until the tall clock above his head chimed two. 
He could not sleep, but his consciousness was inert and his 
mind seemed limp and empty, as one who has worked past 
his limit. The hymn that the clock chimed tiirough the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


403 


quarter hours repeated itself over and over again without 
meaning in his brain. Something aroused him; he started 
up suddenly, and lying half on his elbow and half on his 
side he stared about him, and was conscious of a great 
light in the room: it was as though there was a fire near by 
and he was alarmed, but he could not move. As he looked 
into space, terrified by the paralysis that held him, he saw 
across the face of the organ, “ Righteousness exalteth a 
Nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” 

Quick as a flash his mind went back to the time that 
same motto stared meaninglessly at him from above the 
pulpit in the chapel at West Point, to which he had been 
appointed official visitor at Commencement many years 
before. But that night as he gazed at the text its mean* 
ing came rushing through his brain. It came so quickly 
that he could not will it back nor reason it in. Righteous' 
ness, he knew, was not piety — not wearing your Sunday 
clothes to church and praying and singing psalms; it was 
living honestly and kindly and charitably and dealing 
decently with every one in every transaction; and sin — 
that, he knew — was the cheating, the deceiving, and the 
malicious greed that had built up his company and scores 
of others like it all over the land. That, he knew — that 
bribery and corruption and vicarious stealing which he had 
learned to know as business — that was a reproach to any 
people, and as it came to him that he was a miserable 
offender and that the other life, the decent life, was the 
right life, he was filled with a joy that he could not ex¬ 
press, and he let the light fail about him unheeded, and 
lay for a time in a transport of happiness. He had found 
the secret. 

The truth had come to him — to him first of all men, 
and it was his to tell. The joy of it — that he should 
find out what righteousness was — that it was not crying 
“ Lord, Lord ” and playing the hypocrite — thrilled him. 
And then the sense of his sinning came over him, but 
only with joy too, because he felt he could show others 
how foolish they were. The clock stopped ticking; the 
chimes were silent, and he lay unconscious of his body,, 


404 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


with his spirit bathed in some new essence that he did 
not understand and did not try to understand. Finally 
he rose and went to his organ and turned on the motor, 
and put his hands to the keys. As he played the hymn 
to the “Evening Star,” John Barclay looked up and saw 
his mother standing upon the stair with her fine old face 
bathed in tears. And then at last — 

Tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay? All these months there 
have been no tears for him — none, except miserable little 
corroding tears of rage and shame. But now there are 
tears for Mr. Barclay, large, man’s size, soul-healing tears 
— tears of repentance; not for the rich Mr. Barclay, the 
proud Mr. Barclay, the powerful, man-hating, God-defying 
Mr. Barclay of Sycamore Ridge, but for John Barclay, a 
contrite man, the humblest in all the kingdom. 

And as John Barclay let his soul rise with the swelling 
music, he felt the solace of a great peace in his heart; he 
turned his wet face upward and cried, “ Oh, mother, 
mother, I feel like a child! ” Then Mary Barclay knew 
that her son had let Him in, knew in her own heart all 
the joy there is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


It Is written in the Book that holds the wisdom of ouf 
race that one who is reborn into the Kingdom of God, 
enters as a little child. It is there in black and white, 
vet few people get the idea into their consciousnesses. 
They expect regeneration to produce an upright man. 
God knows better than that. And we should know bet¬ 
ter too when it is written down for us. And so you 
good people who expect to see John Barclay turn right¬ 
about face on the habits of a lifetime are to be disap¬ 
pointed. For a little child stumbles and falls and goes 
the wrong way many times before it learns the way of 
life. There came days after that summer night of 1904, 
when John Barclay fell —days when he would sneak into 
the stenographers’ room in his office in the City and tear 
up some letter he had dictated, when he would send a 
telegram annulling an order, when he would find himself 
cheating and gouging his competitors or his business 
associates, — even days when he had not the moral cour¬ 
age to retrace his steps although he knew he was wrong. 
Shame put her brand on his heart, and his face showed 
to those who watched it closely — and there were scores 
of fellow-gamblers at the game with him, whose profits 
came from watching his face—his face showed forth un¬ 
certainty and daze. So men said, “ The old man’s off his 
feed,” or others said, “Barclay’s losing his nerve”; and 
still others said, “ Can it be possible that the old hypocrite 
is getting a sort of belated conscience? ” 

But slowly, inch by inch, the child within him grew; 
he gripped his soul with the iron hand of will that had 
made a man of him, and when the child fell and ached 
with shame, Barclay’s will sustained the weakling. We 

405 


406 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


are so hidden by our masks that this struggle in the man's 
soul, though guessed at by some of those about him, was 
unknown to the hundreds who saw him every day. But 
for him the universe had changed. And as a child, 
amazed, he looked upon the new wonder of God’s order 
about him and went tripping and stumbling and toppling 
over awkwardly through it all as one learning some new 
equilibrium. There were times when his heart grew sick, 
and he would have given it all up. There were hours 
when he did surrender; when he did a mean thing and 
gloried in it, or a cowardly thing and apologized for it. 
But his will rose and turned him back to his resolve. He 
found the big things easy, and the little things hard to do. 
So he kept at the big things until they had pushed him so 
far toward his goal that the little things were details which 
he repaired slowly and with anguish of humiliation in 
secret, and unknown even to those who were nearest to 
him. 

And all this struggle was behind the hard face, under the 
broad, high forehead, back of the mean jaw, beneath the 
cover of the sharp brazen eyes. Even in Sycamore Ridge 
they did not suspect the truth until Barclay had grown so 
strong in his new faith that he could look at his yester¬ 
days without shuddering. 

The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and six was a 
slow year politically in Sycamore Ridge, so in the parliament 
at McHurdie’s shop discussion took somewhat wider range 
than was usual. It may interest metaphysicians in the 
world at large to know that the McHurdie parliament 
that August definitely decided that this is not a material 
world ; that sensation is a delusion, that the whole phan¬ 
tasmagoria of the outer and material world is a reaction 
of some sort upon the individual consciousness. Up to 
this point the matter is settled, and metaphysicians may 
as well make a record of the decision : for Watts McHurdie, 
Jacob Dolan, Philemon Ward, Martin Culpepper, and 
sometimes Oscar Fernald, know just exactly as much 
about it as the ablest logician in the world. It is, how¬ 
ever* regrettable that after deciding that the external 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


407 


world is but a divine reaction upon the individual con¬ 
sciousness, the parliament was unable to reach any sort of 
a decision as to whose consciousness received the picture. 
Mr. Dolan maintained vigorously that his consciousness 
was the one actually affected, and that the colonel and the 
general and Watts were mere hallucinations of his. The 
general held that Jake and the others were accessory 
phantasms of his own dream, and Watts and the colonel, 
being of more poetical temperament, held that the whole 
outfit was a chimera in some larger consciousness, whose 
entity it is not given us to know. As for Oscar, he 
claimed the parliament was crazy, and started to prove it, 
when it was thought best to shift and modify the discus¬ 
sion ; and, therefore, early in September, when the upper 
currents of the national atmosphere were vocal with dis¬ 
cordant allegations, denials, accusations, and maledictions, 
in Watts McHurdie’s shop the question oefore the house 
was, 44 How many people are there in the world?” For 
ten days, in the desultory debate that had droned through 
the summer, the general, true to his former contention, in¬ 
sisted that there was only one person in the world. Mr. 
Dolan, with the Celtic elasticity of reason, was willing to 
admit two. 

44 You and me and no more — all the rest is background 
for us,” he proclaimed. ' ,4 If the you of the moment is the 
colonel — well and good; then the colonel and 1 for it; 
but if it is the general and I •— to the trees with yout 
colonel and Watts, and the three billion others — you’re 
merely stage setting, and become third persons.” 

44 But,” asked McIIurdie, 44 if I exist this minute with 
you, and then you focus your attention on Mart there, the 
next minute, and he exists, what becomes of me when you 
turn your head from me ? ” 

Dolan did not answer. He dipped into the Times and 
read awhile, and the colonel and the general got out the 
checkerboard and plunged into a silent game. At 
length Dolan, after the fashion of debaters in the parKa* 
ment, came out of his newspaper and said: — 

44 That, Mr. McHurdie, is a problem ranging off the sub 


408 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


ject, into the theories of the essence of time and space, and 
I refuse to answer it.” 

McHurdie kept on working, and the hands of the clock 
slipped around nearly an hour. Then the bell tinkled 
and Neal Ward came in on his afternoon* round for news 
to print in the next day’s issue of the Banner . 

“ Anything new ? ” he asked. 

“ Mrs. Dorman is putting new awnings on the rear win¬ 
dows of her store — did you get that ? ” asked McHurdie. 

The young man made a note of the fact. 

“ Yes,” added Dolan, “and you may just say that Hon. 
Jacob Dolan, former sheriff of Garrison County, and a 
member of ‘ C ’ Company, well known in this community, 
who has been custodian of public buildings and grounds 
in and for Garrison County, state of Kansas, ss., is 
contemplating resigning his position and removing to the 
National Soldiers’ Home at Leavenworth for the future.” 

Young Ward smiled, but did not take the item down in 
his note-book. 

“ It isn’t time yet,” he said. 

“ Why not ? ” asked Dolan. 

“ Only two months and a half since I printed that the 
last time. It can’t go oftener than four times a year, 
and it’s been in twice this year. Late in December will 
time it about right.” 

“ What’s the news with you, boy ? ” asked Dolan. 

“ Well,” said the young man, pausing carefully as if to 
make a selection from a large and tempting assortment, 
but really swinging his arms for a long jump into the 
heart of the matter in his mind, “have you heard that 
John Barclay has given the town his pipe organ? ” 

“ You don’t say I ” exclaimed McHurdie. 

“Tired of it?” asked Dolan, as though twenty-five- 
thousand-dollar pipe organs were raining in the town every 
few days. 

“ It’ll not be that, Jake,” said Watts. “John is no man 
to tire of things.” 

“No, it’s not that, Mr. Dolan,” answered Neal Ward. 
“ He has sent word to the mayor and council that he is 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


4U& 

going to have the organ installed in Barclay Hall this 
week at his own expense, and he accompanied the letter 
with fifty thousand dollars in securities to hire a perma¬ 
nent organist and a band-master for the band ; and a band 
concert and an organ concert will alternate in the hall 
every week during the year. I gather from reading his 
letter, that Mr. Barclay believes the organ will do more 
good in the hall than in his house.” 

The general and the colonel kept on at their game. 
Dolan whistled, and Watts nodded his head. “That’s 
what I would say he did it for,” said McHurdie. 

“Are the securities N.P.C. stock?” asked Dolan, ten¬ 
tatively. 

“ No,” replied Neal; “ I saw them ; they are municipal 
bonds of one sort and another.” 

“ Well, well — Johnnie at the mill certainly is popping 
open like a chestnut bur. Generally when he has some 
scheme on to buy public sentiment he endows something 
with N.P.C. stock, so that in case of a lawsuit against 
the company he’d have the people interested in protect¬ 
ing the stock. This new tack is certainly queer doings. 
Certainly queer doings for the dusty miller I ” repeated 
Dolan. 

“Well, it’s like his buying the waterworks of Bemis 
last month, and that land at the new pumping station, 
and giving the council money to build the new dam and 
power-house. He had no rebate or take back in that — 
at least no one can see it,” said the young man. 

“Nellie says,” put in Watts, “that she heard from Mrs. 
Fernald, who got it from her girl, who got it from the girl 
who works in the Hub restaurant, who had it from Mrs. 
Carnine’s girl — so it come pretty straight — that Lige 
made John pay a pretty penny for the waterworks, and 
they had a great row because John would give up the fight.” 

“ Yes,” replied Dolan, “ it come to me from one of the 
nigger prisoners in the jail, who has a friend who sweeps 
out Gabe’s bank, that he heard John and Lige dickering, 
and that Lige held John up for a hundred thousand cold 
dollars for his bar grain.” 


410 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


“The Associated Press to-day/' said young Ward, “ has 
a story to the effect that there is a great boom in certain 
railroad stocks owing to some secret operations of Mr. 
Barclay. They don’t know what he is doing, but things 
are pretty shaky. He refuses to make a statement.” 

“He’s a queer canny little man,” explained Watts, 
“You never know where he’ll break out next.” 

“Well, he’s up to some devilment,” exclaimed Dolan; 
“ you can depend on that. Why do you suppose he’s lay* 
ing off the hands at the strip factory ? ” 

The young man shook his head. “ Give it up. I asked 
Mr, Mason and the best I could get out of him was a 
parrot-like statement that ‘owing to the oversupply of our 
commodity, we have decided to close operations for the 
present. We have, therefore,’ he said pompously, ‘given 
each of our employees unable to find immediate work here, 
a ticket for himself and family to any point in the United 
States to which he may desire to go, and have agreed to 
pay the freight on his household goods also.’ That was 
every word I could g^t out of him — and you know Mr, 
Mason is pretty talkative sometimes.” 

“ Queer doings for the dusty miller,” repeated Dolan. 

The group by the bench heard the slap of the checker 
board on its shelf, and General Ward cut into the conver 
sation as one who had never been out of it. “ The boy’s 
got good blood in him; it will come out some day—he 
wasn’t made a Thatcher and a Barclay and a Winthrop 
for nothing. Lizzie was over there the other night for 
tea with them, and she said she hadn’t seen John so much 
like himself for years.” 

Young Ward went about his afternoons work and the 
parliament continued its debate on miscellaneous public 
business. The general pulled the Times from Dolan’s 
pocket and began turning it over. He stopped and read 
for a few moments and exclaimed: — 

“ Boys — see here. Maybe this explains something we 
were talking about.” He began reading a news item sent 
out from Washington, D.C. The item stated that the 
Department of Commerce and Labour had scored what 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


411 


every one in official circles believed was the most impor* 
tant victory ever achieved by the government outside of a 
war. The item continued: — 

“Within the last ten days, the head of one of the largest so-called 
trusts in this country called at the department, and explained that his 
organization, which controls a great staple commodity, was going into 
voluntary liquidation. The organization in question has been the 
subject of governmental investigation for nearly two years, and inves¬ 
tigators were constantly hampered and annoyed by attempts of politi¬ 
cians of the very highest caste, outside of the White House, trying to 
get inspectors removed or discredited, and all along the line of its in* 
vestigations the government has felt a powerful secret influence 
shielding the trust. As an evidence of his good faith in the disorgan 
ization, the head of the trust, while he was here, promised to send to 
the White House, what he called his 4 political burglar’s kit,’consisting 
of a card index, labelling and ticketing with elaborate cross references 
and cabinet data, every man in the United States who is in politics 
far enough to get to his state legislature, or to be a nominee of his 
party for county attorney. This outfit, shipped in a score of great 
boxes, was dumped at the White House to-day, and it is said that a 
number of the cards indicating the reputation of certain so-called 
conservative senators and congressmen may be framed. There is a 
great hubbub in Washington, and the newspaper correspondents who 
called at the White House on their morning rounds were regaled by a 
confidential glimpse into the cards and the cabinets. It is likely that 
the whole outfit will be filed in the Department of Commerce and 
Labour, p„nd will constitute the basis of what is called around the White 
House to-day, a ‘National Rogues’ Gallery.’ The complete details of 
every senatorial election held in the country during twelve years last 
past, showing how to reach any Senator susceptible to any influence 
whatsoever, whether political, social, or religious, are among the tro¬ 
phies of the chase in the hands of the Mighty Hunter for Big Game 
to-day.” 

When General Ward had finished reading, he lifted up 
his glasses and said: “ Well, that’s it, boys; John has come 
to his turn of the road. Here’s the rest. It says: ‘The 
corporation in question is practically controlled by one 
man, the man who has placed the information above men 
tioned in the hands of the government. It is a corpora 
tion owning no physical property whatever, and is 
organized as a rebate hopper, if one may so style it. The 
head of the corporation stated when he was here recently 
that he is preparing to buy in every share of the company’s 
stock at the price for which it was sold and then —’ Jake. 


412 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


where is page 3 with the rest of this article on it ?" asked 
the general. 

“ Why, I threw that away coming down here/* responded 
Dolan. 

“Rather leaves us in the air — doesn’t it?” suggested 
the colonel. 

“ Well, it’s John. I know enough to know that —from 
Neal,” said the general. 

The afternoon sun was shining in the south window of 
the shop. Dolan started to go. In the doorway McHurdie 
halted him. 

“ Jake,” he cried, pointing a lean, smutty finger at Dolan, 
“Jake Dolan, if there are only two people in the world, 
what becomes of me when you begin talking to Mart ? If 
you knew, you would not dodge. In philosophy no man 
can stand on his constitutional rights. Turn state’s evi¬ 
dence, Jake Dolan, and tell the truth — what becomes of 
me?” 

“’Tis an improper question,” replied Dolan, and then 
drawing himself up and pulling down the front of his coat, 
he added, “ ’Tis not a matter that may be discussed among 
gentlemen,” and with that he disappeared. 

The front door-bell tinkled, and the parliament prepared 
to adjourn. The colonel helped the poet close his store 
and bring in the wooden horse from the sidewalk, and then 
Molly Brownwell came with her phaeton and drove the 
two old men home. On the way up Main Street they 
overhauled Neal Ward. Mrs. Brownwell turned in to the 
sidewalk and called, “Neal, can you run over to the 
house a moment this evening?” And when he answered 
in the affirmative, she let the old nag amble gently up the 
street. 

“ How pretty you are, Aunt Molly,” exclaimed Neal, as 
the gray-haired woman who could still wear a red ribbon 
came into the room where he sat waiting for her. The 
boy’s compliment pleased her, and she did not hesitate tc 
say so. But after that she plunged into the subject that 
was uppermost in her heart. 

“Neal,” she said, as she drew her chair in front of him 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


413 


so that she could see his face and know the truth, no mat* 
ter what his lips might say, “ we’re partners now, aren’t 
we, or what amounts to the same thing?” She smiled 
good-naturedly. “ I own the overdraft at the bank and 
you own the mortgage at the court-house. So I am 
going to ask you a plain question; and if you say it isn’t 
any of my business, I’ll attempt to show you that it is. 
Neal,” she asked, looking earnestly into his face, “why 
do you write to Jeanette Barclay every day of your life 
and not mail the letters ? ” 

The youth flushed. “Why — Aunt Molly — how did 
you know ? — I never told — ” 

“No, Neal, you never told me ; but this afternoon while 
you were out I was looking for Adrian’s check-book; I 
was sure we paid Dorman’s bill last April, and that I took 
the check over myself. I was going through the desk, 
and I got on your side, thinking I might have left the 
check-book there by mistake, and I ran into the very 
midst of those letters, before I knew what I was about. 
Now, Neal — why?” 

The young man gazed at the woman seriously for a time 
and then parried her question with, “Why do you care—• 
what difference can it make to you, Aunt Molly?” 

“ Because,” she answered quickly, “ because I wish to 
see my partner happy. He will do better work so — if 
you desire to put it on a cold-blooded basis. Oh, Nealie, 
Nealie — do you love her that much — that you take your 
heart and your life to her without hope or without sign or 
answer every day ? ” 

He dropped his eyes, and turned his face away. “ Not 
every day,” he answered, “ not every day — but every 
night, Aunt Molly.” 

“Why don’t you go to her, Neal, and tell her?” asked 
the woman. “ Is it so hopeless as that?” 

“ Oh, there are many reasons — why I don’t go to her,” 
he replied. After a minute’s silence he went on : “ In the 
first place she is a very rich girl, and that makes a differ¬ 
ence — now. When she was just a young girl of eighteen, 
or such a matter, and I only twenty or twenty-one, we met 


414 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


so naturally, and it all came out so beautifully! But we 
are older now, Aunt Molly,” he said sadly, “and it’s 
different.” 

“ Yes,” admitted Mrs. Brown well, “it is different now 
— you are right about it.” 

“ Yes,” he continued, repeating a patter which he had 
said to himself a thousand times. “Yes,— and then 
I can’t say I’m sorry — for I’m not. I’d do it again. 
And I know how Mr. Barclay feels; he didn’t leave me 
in any doubt about that,” smiled the boy, “ when I left 
his office that morning after telling him what I was going 
to do. So,” he sighed and smiled in rather hopeless good 
humour, “ I can’t see my way out. Can you ?” 

Molly Brownwell leaned back in her chair, and closed 
her eyes for a minute, and then shook her head, and said, 
“No, Neal, not now; but there is a way — somehow — I 
am sure of that.” 

He laughed for want of any words to express his hope¬ 
lessness, and the two — the youth in despair, and the 
woman full of hope — sat in silence. 

“Neal,” she asked finally, “what do you put in those 
letters? Why do you write them at all?” 

The young man with his eyes upon the floor began, 
“Well — they’re just letters, Aunt Molly — just letters—• 
such as I used to write before—don’t you know.” His voice 
was dull and passionless, and he went on: “I can’t tell 
you more about them. They’re just letters.” He drew 
in a quick long breath and exclaimed: “ Oh, you know 
what they are — I want to talk to some one and I’m going 
to. Oh, Aunt Molly,” he cried, “ I’m not heart-broken, 
and all that—I’m infinitely happy. Because I still hold 
it — it doesn’t die. Don’t you see? And I know that 
always it will be with me—whatever may come to her* 
I don’t want to forget — and it is my only joy in the 
matter, that I never will forget. I can be happy this way ; 
I don’t want to give any other woman a warmed-over 
heart, for this would always be there — I know it — and 
so I am just going to keep it.” He dropped his voice 
again after a sigh, and went on: “There, that’s all there 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


415 


is to it. Do you think I’m a fool ? ” he asked, as the colour 
came into his face. 

“No, Neal, I don’t,” said Molly Brown well, as she 
stood beside him. “You are a brave, manly fellow, Neal, 
and I wish I could help you. I don’t see how now — but 
the way will come—sometime. Now,” she added, “tell 
me about the paper.” 

And then they went into business matters which do not 
concern us; for in this story business conjures up the 
face of John Barclay — the tanned, hard face of John 
Barclay, crackled with a hundred wrinkles about the 
eyes, and scarred with hard lines about the furtive crafty 
mouth ; and we do not wish to see that face now; it 
should be hidden while the new soul that is rising in his 
body struggles with that tough, bronzed rind, gets a 
focus from the heart into those glaring brass eyes, and 
teaches the lying lips to speak the truth, and having 
spoken it to look it. And so while John Barclay in the 
City is daily slipping millions of his railroad bonds into 
the market, — slipping them in quietly yet steadily withal, 
mixing them into the daily commerce of the country, so 
gently that they are absorbed before any one knows they 
have left his long grasping fingers, — while he is trading 
to his heart’s content, let us forget him, and look at this 
young man, that September night, after he left Molly 
Brownwell, sitting at his desk in the office with the tele¬ 
phone at his elbow, with the smell of the ink from the 
presses in his nostrils, with the silence of the deserted 
office becalming his soul, and with his heart — a clean, 
strong, manly heart — full of the picture of a woman’s 
face, and the vision without a hope. In his brain are 
recorded a thousand pictures, and millions of little fibres 
run all over this brain, conjuring up those pictures, and 
if there are blue eyes in the pictures, and lips in the 
pictures, and the pressure of hands, and the touch of souls 
in the pictures,— they are Neal Ward’s pictures, — they 
are Mr. Higgin’s pictures, and Mrs. Wiggin’s pictures, 
and Mr. Stiggin’s pictures, my dears, and alack and alas, 
they are the pictures of Miss Jones and Miss Lewis and 


410 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Miss Thomas and Miss Smith, for that matter ; and so, my 
dears, it we would be happy we should be careful even if 
we can’t be good, for it is all for eternity, and whatever 
courts may say, and whatever churches may say, and what¬ 
ever comes back with rings and letters and trinkets, —■ 
there is no divorce, and the pictures always stay in the 
heart, and the sum of the pictures is life. 

So that September night Neal Ward went back over the 
old trail as lovers always will, and then his pen began to 
write. Now in the nature of things the first three words 
are not for our eyes, and to-night we must not see the first 
three lines nor the first thirty, nor the last three words nor 
the last three lines nor the last thirty lines. But we may 
watch him write; we may observe how longingly he looks 
at the telephone, as if tempted to go to it, and tell it 
what is in his breast. There it sits, all shiny and metallic; 
and by conjuring it with a number and a word, he could 
have her with him. Yet he does not take it up; because 
— the crazy loon thinks in the soul of him, that what he 
writes, some way, in the great unknown system of receivers 
and recorders and transmitters of thought that range 
through this universe, is pouring into her heart, and so he 
writes and smiles, and smiles and writes — no bigger fool 
than half the other lovers on the planet who, talking to 
their sweethearts, holding their hands and looking squarely 
into their eyes, deceive themselves that what they say is 
going to the heart, and not going in one ear and out of 
the other. 

And now let us put on our seven-league boots and walk 
from September’s green and brown, through October’s gold 
and crimson, into that season of the year 1906 when Na¬ 
ture is shifting her scenery, making ready for the great 
spring show. It is bleak, but not cold; barren, but not 
ugly, — for th e stage setting of the hills and woods and 
streams, even without the coloured wings and flies and the 
painted trees and grass, has its fine simplicity of form and 
grouping that are good to look upon. Observe in the 
picture a small man sitting on a log in a wood, looking at 
the stencil work of the brown and gray branches, as its 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


417 


shadows waver and shimmer upon the gray earth. He is 
poking reflectively in the earth with his cane. His boat 
is tied to some tree roots, and he doesn’t breathe as regularly 
as a man should breathe who is merely thinking of his next 
dinner or his last dollar. He delves into himself and al¬ 
most forgets to breathe at all, so deep is his abstraction. 
And so he sits for five minutes—ten minutes—half an 
hour — and save that he edges into the sun as the shadow 
of the great walnut tree above catches him, an hour passes 
and he does not move. Poking, poking, poking his 
stick into the mould, he has dug up much litter in an hour, 
and he has seen his whole life thrown up before him. In 
those leaves yonder is a battle—a bloody battle, and 
things are blistered into his boyish heart in that battle 
that never heal over; that tuft of sod is a girl’s face — a 
little girl’s face that he loved as a boy; there is his first 
lawsuit—that ragged pile of leaves by the twig at the 
log’s end; and the twig is his first ten thousand dollars. 
All of it lies there before him, his victories and his defeats, 
his millions come, and his millions going — going? —yes, 
all but gone. Yonder that deep gash in the sod at the 
left hides a woman’s face — pale, wasted, dead on her pil¬ 
low; and that clean black streak on the ebony cane — 
that is a tear, and in t. <e tear is a girl’s face and back of 
hers shimmers a boy’s countenance. All of John Barclay’s 
life and hopes and dreams and visions are spread out be¬ 
fore him on the ground. So he closes his eyes, and braces 
his soul, and then, having risen, whistles as he limps lightly 

— for a man past fifty — down to the boat. He rows with 
a clean manly stroke — even in an old flat-bottomed boat 

— through the hazy sunset into the dusk. 

“Jeanette,” he said to his daughter that evening at din¬ 
ner, “ I wish you would go to the phone, pretty soon, and 
tell Molly Culpepper that I want her to come down this 
evening. I am anxious to see her. The colonel isn’t at 
home, or I’d have him, mother,” explained Mr. Barclay. 

And that is why Miss Barclay called, “876, please — 
yes, 8-7-6;” and then said: “Hello — hello, is this 876? 
Yes — is Mrs. Brown well in? Oh, all right.” And then. 


418 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


* 54, please; yes, 5-4. Is this yon, Aunt Molly ? Father if 
in town — he came in this morning and has spent the after-' 
noon on the river, and he told me at dinner to ask you if 
you could run down this evening. Oh, any time. I didn’t 
Know you worked nights at the office. Oh, is Mr. Ward 
out of town? — I didn’t know. All right, then — about 
eight o’clock — we’ll look for you.” 

And that is why at the other end of the telephone, a 
pretty, gray-haired woman stood, and looked, and looked, 
and looked at a plain walnut desk, as though it was 
enchanted, and then slipped guiltily over to that black 
walnut desk, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a whole 
apronful of letters. 

And so the reader may know what Molly Brownwell 
had in that package which she put in the buggy seat beside 
her when she drove down to see the Barclays, that beauti¬ 
ful starry November night. She put the package with 
her hat and wraps in Jeanette’s room, and then came down 
to the living room where John Barclay sat by the roaring 
fire in the wide fireplace, with a bundle beside him also. 
His mother was there, and his daughter took a seat beside 
him. 

44 Molly,” said Barclay, with a deep sigh, 44 1 sent for you, 
first, because, of all the people in the world, it is but just 
that you should be here, to witness what I am doing; and 
second, because Jane would have had you, and I want you 
to be with Jeanette when I tell her some things that she 
must know to-night — she and mother.” 

He was sitting in a deep easy chair, with one foot — 
not his lame foot — curled under him, a wiry-looking little 
gray cat of a man who nervously drummed on the mahogany 
chair arm, or kept running his hands over the carving, or 
folding and unfolding them, and twirled his thumbs in¬ 
cessantly as he talked. He smiled as he began : — 

44 Well, girls, father got off the chair car at Sycamore 
Ridge this morning, after having had the best sleep he ha*" 
had in twenty years.” 

He paused for the effect of his declaration to sink in. 
Jeanette asked, 44 Where was the car ? ” 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


410 


* What car ? ” teased the little gray cat. 

M Why, our car ? " 

w My dear, we have no car,” he smiled, with the cream 
of mystery on his lips. Then he licked it off. “I sold 
the car three weeks ago, when I left the Ridge the last 
time.” He dropped into an eloquent silence, and then 
went on: 44 1 rode in the chair car to save three dollars 
I need it in my business.” 

His mother’s blue eyes were watching him closely. She 
exclaimed, 44 John, quit your foolishness. What have you 
done ? ” 

He laughed as he said: 44 Mother, I have returned to 
you poor but honest. My total assets at this minute are 
seventy-live million dollars’ worth of stock of the National 
Provisions Company, tied up in this bundle on the floor 
here, and five thousand dollars in the Exchange National 
Bank of Sycamore Ridge which I have held for thirty 
years. I sold my State Bank stock last Monday to Gabe 
Carnine. I have thirty-four dollars and seventy-three 
cents in my pocket-book, and that is all.” 

The women were puzzled, and their faces showed it. 
So the little gray cat made short work of the mice. 

44 Well, now, to be brief and plain,” said Barclay, pulling 
himself forward in his chair and thrusting out an arm and 
hand, as if to grip the attention of his hearers, 44 1 have 
always owned or directly controlled over half the N.P.C. 
stock — representing a big pile of money. I am trying 
to forget how much, and you don’t care. But it was only 
part of my holdings — about half or such a matter, I should 
say. The rest were railroad bonds on roads necessary to 
the company, mortgages on mills and elevators whose stock 
was merged in the company, and all sorts of gilt-edged 
stuff, bank stock and insurance company stock—all needed 
to make N.P.C. a dominant factor in the commercial life 
of the country. You don’t care about that, but it was all 
a sort of commercial blackmail on certain fellows and 
interests to keep them from fighting N.P.C.” Barclay 
hitched himself forward to the edge of his chair, and still 
held out his grappling-hook of a hand to hold them as he 


420 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


smiled and went on: “Well, I’ve been kind of swapping 
horses here for six months or so — trading my gilt-edged 
bonds and stuff for cash and buying up N.P.C. stock, 
I got a lot of it quietly — an awful lot.” He grinned. 
“ I guess that was square enough. I paid the price for it 

— and a little better than the price — because I had to.” 
He was silent a few moments, looking at the fire. He 
meditated pleasantly: “There was some good in it — a 
lot of good when you come to think of it — but a fearful 
lot of bad! Well— I’ve saved the good. I just reorgan¬ 
ized the whole concern from top to bottom — the whole 
blame rebate hopper. We had some patents, and we had 
some contracts with mills, and we had some good ideas of 
organization. And I’ve kept the good and chucked the 
bad. I put N.P.C. out of business and have issued 
stock in the new company to our minority whose stock I 
couldn’t buy and have squeezed the water out of the 
whole concern. And then I took what balance I had left 

— every cent of it, went over the books for thirty years, 
and made what restitution I could.” He grinned as he 
added: “But I found it was nearly whittlety whet. A 
lot of fellows had been doing me up, while I had been 
doing others up. But I made what restitution I could 
and then I got out. I closed up the City office, and 
moved the whole concern to St. Paul, and turned it over 
to the real owners — the millers and elevator men — and 
I have organized an industry with a capitalization small 
enough to make it possible for them to afford to be honest 
for thirty years — while our patents and contracts last, 
anyway.” He put an elbow in the hollow of his hand, 
and the knuckles on his knee as he sat cross-legged, and 
drawled : “I wonder if it will work—” and repeated: “I 
wonder, I wonder. There’s big money in it; she’s a dead 
monopoly as she stands, and they have the key to the 
whole thing in the Commerce Department at Washing¬ 
ton. They can keep her straight if they will.” He 
paused for a while and went on: “But I’m tired of it. 
The great hulk of a thing has ground the soul out of me. 
So I ducked. Girls,” he cried, as he turned toward them. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


421 


* here's the way it is ; I never did any real good with 
money. I’m going to see what a man can do to help his 
fellows with liis bare hands. I want to help, not with 
money, but just to be some account on earth without 
money. And so yesterday I cleaned up the whole deal 
forever.” 

He paused to let it sink in. Finally Jeanette asked, 
“ And are we poor, father — poor ? ” 

“Well, my dear,” he expanded, “your grandmother 
Barclay has always owned this house. An Omaha syndi¬ 
cate owns the mill. I own $5,000 in bank stock, and the 
boy who marries you for your money right now is going 
to get badly left.” 

“You aren’t fooling me, are you, John?” asked his 
mother as she rose from her chair. 

“No, mother,” answered the son, “I’ve got rid of every 
dirty dollar I have on earth. The bank stock I bought 
with the money the Citizens’ Committee subscribed to 
pay me for winning the county-seat lawsuit. As near as 
I can figure it out, that was about the last clean money I 
ever earned.” 

The mother walked toward her son, and leaned over 
and kissed him again and again as she sobbed : “Oh, John, 
I am so happy to-night — so happy.” 

In a moment he asked, “Well, Jeanette, what do you 
think of it ? ” 

“You know what I think, father — you know very well, 
don’t you ? ” 

He sighed and nodded his head. Then he reached for 
the package on the floor and began cutting the strings. 
The bundle burst open and the stock of the National Pro¬ 
visions Company, issued only in fifty-thousand-dollar and 
one-hundred-thousand-dollar shares, littered the floor. 

“Now,” cried Barclay, as he stood looking at the litter, 
“ now, Molly, here’s what I want you to do: Burn it up — 
burn it up,” he cried. “ It has burned the joy out of your 
life, Molly —burn it up ! I have fought it all out to-day 
on the river—but I can’t quite do that. Burn it up 
for God’s sake, Molly, burn it up.” 


422 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


When the white ashes had risen up the chimney, he put 
on another log. “ This is our last extravagance for some 
time, girls — but we’ll celebrate to-night,” he cried. “You 
haven’t a little elderberry wine, have you, mother ? ” he 
asked. “ Riley says that’s the stuff for little boys with 
curvature of the spine — and I’ll tell you it put several 
kinks in mine to watch that burn.” 

And so they sat for an hour talking of old times while 
the fire burned. But Molly Brownwell’s mind was not in 
the performance that John Barclay had staged. She could 
see nothing but the package lying on her cloak in the girl’s 
room upstairs. So she rose to go early, and the circle 
broke when she left it. She and Jeanette left John stand¬ 
ing with his arms about his mother, patting her back while 
she wept. 

As she closed the door of Jeanette’s room behind her, 
Molly Brownwell knew that she must speak. “ Jeanette,” 
she said, “ I don’t know just how to say it, dear; but, I stole 
those — I mean what is in that package — I took it and 
Neal doesn’t know I have it. It’s for you,” she cried, as 
she broke the string that tied it, and tore off the wrapping. 

The girl stared at her and asked: “Why, Aunt Molly—- 
what is it? I don’t understand.” 

The woman in pulling her wrap from the chair, tumbled 
the letters to the floor. She slipped into her cloak and 
kissed the bewildered girl, and said as she stood in the 
doorway: “ There they are, my dear — they are yours; do 
what you please with them.” 

She hurried down the stairs, and finding John sitting 
alone before the fire in the sitting room, would have 
bidden him good night as she passed through the room, 
but he stopped her. 

“ There is one thing more, Molly,” he said, as he 
motioned to a chair. 

“ Yes,” she answered, “ I wondered if you had forgotten 
it!” 

He worried the fire, and renewed the blaze, before he 
spoke. “ What about Neal — how does he feel ? ” 

“John,” replied the woman, turning upon him a radiant 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


423 


face, “ it is the most beautiful thing in the world — that 
boy’s love for Jennie! Why, every night after his work 
is done, sitting there in the office aione, Neal writes her a 
letter, that he never mails; just takes his heart to her, 
John. I found a great stack of them in his desk the other 
day.” 

Barclay's face crinkled in a spasm of pain, and he ex¬ 
claimed, “ Poor little kids —poor, poor children.” 

“John — ” Molly Brown well hesitated, and then took 
courage and cried: “Won’t you—won’t you for Ellen’s 
sake? It is like that—like you and Ellen. And,” she 
stammered, “ oh, John, I do want to see one such love affair 
end happily before I die.” 

Barclay’s hard jaw trembled, and his eyes were wet as 
he rose and limped across the great room. At the foot of 
the stairs he called up, “ Don’t bother with the phone, 
Jeanette, I’m going to use it.” He explained, “ The branch 
in her room rings when we use this one,” and then asked, 
“Do you know where he is — at home or at the office ?” 

“ If the ten o’clock train is in, he’s at the office. If not, 
he’s not in town.” 

But Barclay went to the hall, and when he returned he 
said, “ Well, I got him; he’ll be right out.” 

Molly was standing by the fire. “ What are you going to 
say, John ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. There’ll be enough for me to say, I 
suppose,” he replied, as he looked at the floor. 

She gave him her hand, and they stood for a minute 
looking back into their lives. They walked together 
toward the door, but at the threshold their eyes met and 
each saw tears, and they parted without words. 

Neal Ward found Barclay prodding the fire, and the 
gray little man, red-faced from his task, limped toward the 
tall, handsome youth, and led him to a chair. Barclay 
stood for a time with his back to the fire, and his head 
down, and in the silence he seemed to try to speak several 
times before the right words came. Then he exclaimed: 

“Neal, I was wrong—dead wrong — and I’ve been too 
proud and mean all this time — to say so.” 


424 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


Neal stared open-eyed at Barclay and moistened his lips 
before language came to him. Finally he said ; “ Well, 
Mr. Barclay—that’s all right. I never blamed you. You 
needn’t have bothered about — that is, to tell me.” 

Barclay gazed at the young man abstractedly for a min¬ 
ute that seemed interminable, and then broke out, “ Damn 
it, Neal, I can’t propose to you — but that’s about what 
I’ve got you out here to-night for.” 

He laughed nervously, but the young face showed his ob¬ 
tuseness, and John Barclay having broken the ice in his 
own heart put his hands in his pockets and threw back his 
head and roared, and then cried merrily : “ All we need 
now is a chorus in fluffy skirts and an orchestra with me 
coming down in front singing, ‘ Will you be my son-in- 
law ? ’ for it to be real comic opera.” 

The young man’s heart gave such a bound of joy that it 
flashed in his face, and the father, seeing it, was thrilled 
with happiness. So he limped over to Neal’s chair and 
stood beaming down upon the embarrassed young fellow. 

“But, Mr. Barclay — ’’the boy found voice, “I don’t 
know — the money — it bothers ms.” 

And John Barclay again threw his head back and roared, 
and then they talked it all out. He told Neal the story 
of his year’s work. It was midnight when they heard the 
telephone ringing, and Barclay, curled up like an old gray 
cat in his chair before the fire, said for old times’ sake, 
“ Neal, go see who is ringing up at this unholy hour.” 

And while Neal Ward steps to the telephone, let us go 
upstairs on one last journey with our astral bodies and 
discover what Jeanette is doing. After Molly’s departure, 
Jeanette stooped to pick up what Molly had left. She 
saw her own name, “ Jeanette Barclay,” and her address 
written on an envelope. She picked it up. It was dated : 
“ Written December 28,” and she saw that the package 
was filled with letters in envelopes similarly addressed in 
Neal Ward’s handwriting. She dropped the letter on her 
dressing-table and began to undo her hair. In a few min¬ 
utes she stopped and picked up another, and laid it down 
unopened, But in half an hour she was sitting on the 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


425 


floor reading the letters through her tears. The flood of 
joy that came over her drowned her pride. For an hour 
she sat reading the letters, and they brought her so near 
to her lover that it seemed that she must reach out and 
touch him. She was drawn by an irresistible impulse to 
her telephone that sat on her desk. It seemed crazy to 
expect to reach Neal Ward at midnight, but as she rose 
from the floor with the letters slipping from her lap and 
with the impulse like a cord drawing her, she saw, or 
thought she saw, standing by the desk, a part of the flutter¬ 
ing shadows, a girl — a quaint, old-fashioned girl in her 
teens, with—but then she remembered the dream girl her 
lover had described in the letter she had just been reading, 
and she understood the source of her delusion. And yet 
there the vision moved by the telephone, smiling and 
beckoning ; then it faded, and there came rushing back to 
her memory a host of recollections of her childhood, and 
of some one she could not place, and then a memory of 
danger, — and then it was all gone and there stood the 
desk and the telephone and the room as it was. 

She shuddered slightly, and then remembered that she 
had just been through two great nervous experiences — the 
story of her father’s changed life, and the return of her 
lover. And she was a level-headed, strong-nerved girl. 
So the joy of love in her heart was not dampened, and the 
cord drawing her to the desk in the window did not loosen, 
and she did not resist. With a gulp of nervous fear she 
rang the telephone bell and called, u 54, please ! ” She 
heard a buzzing, and then a faint stir in the receiver, and 
then she got the answer. She sat a-tremble, afraid to 
reply. The call was repeated in her ear, and then she 
said so faintly that she could not believe it would be 
heard, “Oh, Neal — Neal — I have come back.” 

The young man standing in the dimly lighted hall was 
startled. He cried, “Is it really you, Jeanette — is it 
you? ” 

And then stronger than before the voice said, “Yes, 
Neal, it is I — I have come back! ” 

“ Oh, Jeanette — Jeanette,” he cried. 


426 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


But she stopped him with, “We must not talk any more 
— now, don’t you know — but I had to tell you that I 
had come back, Neal.” And then she said, “ Good night.” 
So there they stood, the only two people in the universe, 
reunited lovers, each with the voice of the other sounding 
in his ears. For Mr. Dolan was right. There are only 
two people in the world, and for these two lovers earth 
and the stars and the systems of suns that make up this 
universe were only background for the play of their 
happiness. 

As Neal Ward came back to John Barclay from the 
telephone, the young man’s face was burning with joy. 

“ Who was it? ” asked Barclay. 

The youth smiled bashfully as he said, “Well, it was 
Jeanette — she was calling up another number and I cut 
in.” 

“ What did she say ? ” asked her father. 

“Oh, nothing — in particular,” replied Neal. 

Barclay looked up quickly, caught the young man’s 
abashed smile, and asked, “Does she know you’re here?” 

“No, she thinks I’m at the office.” 

Barclay rose from his chair, and limped across the room, 
calling back as he mounted the stair, “ Wait a minute.” 

It was more than a minute that Neal Ward stood by the 
fire waiting. 

And now, gentle people, observe the leader of the or¬ 
chestra fumbling with his music. There is a faint stir 
among the musicians under the footlights. And you, too, 
are getting restless; you are feeling for your hat instinc¬ 
tively, and you for your hat-pins, and you for your rub¬ 
bers, while Neal Ward stands there waiting, and the great 
clock ticks in the long silence. There is a rustle on the 
stairs, at the right, and do you see that foot peeping down, 
that skirt, that slender girlish figure coming down, that 
young face tear-stained, happy, laughing and sobbing, 
with the arms outstretched as she nears the last turn of 
the stairs? And the lover — he has started toward her. 
The orchestra leader is standing up. And the youth, 
with God’s holiest glory in his face, has almost reached 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


42) 


her. And there for an instant stand Neal and Jeanette, 
mingling tears in their kisses, for the curtain, the miser¬ 
able, unemotional, awkward curtain — it has stuck, and 
so they must stand apart, hand in hand, devouring each 
other’s faces a moment, and then as the curtain falls, we 
see four feet close together again, and then — and then 
the world comes in upon us, and we smile and sigh, and 
sigh and smile, for the journey of those four feet is 
ended, the story is done. 


CHAPTER XXX 


Being Somewhat in the Nature of an Epilogue 

And now that the performance is finished and the cur¬ 
tain has been rung down, we desire to thank you, one and 
all, for your kind attention, and to express the hope that in 
this highly moral show you may have found some pleasure 
as well as profit. But though the play is ended, and you 
are already reaching for your hats and coats, the lights are 
still dim; and as you see a great white square of light 
appear against the curtain, you know that the entertain¬ 
ment is to conclude with a brief exhibition of the wonders 
of that great modern invention, the cinematograph of 
Time. 

The first flickering shadows show you the interior of 
Watts McHurdie’s shop, and as your eyes take in the 
dancing shapes, you discern the parliament in session. 
Colonel Martin F. Culpepper is sitting there with Watts 
McHurdie, reading and re-reading for the fourth and fifth 
time, in the peculiar pride that authorship has in listening 
to the reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new 
copy of the second edition of “ The Complete Poetical and 
Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, with Notes and 
a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper, 4 C ’ 
Company, Second Regiment K.V.” The colonel, with 
his thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits 
down again to drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working 
on a saddle, but his arms and his hands are not what they 
were in the old days when his saddlery won first prize 
year after year at the Kansas City Fair. So he puffs and 
fusses and sighs his way through his morning’s work. 
Sometimes the colonel reads aloud a line from a verse, or 
a phrase from the Biography — more frequently from the 
Biography — and exclaims, “ Genius, Watts, genius, gen- 

428 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


429 


ius!” But Watts McHurdie makes no reply. As his old 
eyes — quicker than his old fingers — see the sad work 
they are making, his heart sinks within him. 

“ Listen, Watts,” cries the colonel. u How do you like 
this, you old skeezicks ? ” and the colonel reads a stanza full 
of “ lips ” and “ slips,” “ eyes ” and “ tries,” “ desires ” and 
“ fires,” and “ darts ” and “ hearts.” 

The little white-haired old man leans forward eagerly 
to catch it all. But his shoulders slump, and he draws a 
long, tired breath when the colonel has finished. 

“ Man — man,” he cries, “ what a saddle I could make 
when I wrote that! ” And he turns wearily to his task 
again. 

Oscar Fernald paces in busily, and in half an hour 
Lycurgus Mason, who has been thrown out of the current 
of life, drifts into his place in the back-water, and the 
parliament is ready for business. They see Gabriel Car- 
nine totter by, chasing after pennies to add to his little 
pile. The bell tinkles, and the postman brings a letter. 
McHurdie opens it and says, as he looks at the heading: 

“ It’s from old Jake. It is to all of us,” he adds as he 
looks at the top of the sheet of letter paper. He takes off his 
apron and ceremoniously puts on his coat; then seats him¬ 
self, and unfolding the sheet, begins at the very top to 
read:— 


“National Soldiers’ Home, 

“ Leavenworth, Kansas, 
“March 11, 1909. 

“To the Members of McHurdie’s Parliament, 

“ Gents and Comrades: I take my pen in hand this bright spring 
morning to tell you that I arrived here safe, this side up with care, 
glass, be careful, Saturday morning, and I am willing to compromise 
my chances for heaven, which Father Van Sandt being a Dutchman 
always regarded as slim, for a couple of geological ages of this. I hope 
you are the same, but you are not. Given a few hundred white 
nighties for us to wear by day, and a dozen or two dagoes playing on 
harps, and this would be my idea of Heaven. The meals that we do 
have — tell Oscar that when I realize what eating is, what roast beef 
can be, cut thin and rare and dripping with gravy—it makes me wonder 
if the days when I boarded at the Thayer House might not be counted 
as part of the time I must do in the fireworks. And the porcelean 


430 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


bath tubs, and the white clean beds, and the music of the band, and 
the free tobacco — here I raise my Ebenezer, as the Colonel sings 
down in his heretic church ; here I put my standard down. 

“Well, Watts, I hear the news about Nelly. We’ve known it was 
coining for a year, but that doesn’t make it easier. Why don’t you 
come up here, Comrade — we are all lonesome up here, and it doesn’t 
make the difference. Well, John Barclay, the reformed pirate, Presi¬ 
dent of the Exchange National Bank, and general all-round municipal 
reformer, was over in Leavenworth last week attending the Bankers’ 
Convention, or something, and he came to see me, as though he hadn’t 
bid me good-by at the train two days before. But he said things were 
going on at the Ridge about the same, and being away from home, he 
grew confidential, and he told me Lige Bemis had lost all his money 
bucking the board of trade — did you know that? If not, it isn't so, 
and I never told you. John showed me the picture of little John B. 
AVard — as likely a looking yearling as I ever saw. Well, I must close. 
Remember me to all inquiring friends and tell them Comrade Dolan 
is lying down by the still waters.” 

And now the screen is darkened for a moment to mark 
the passage of months before we are given another peep 
into the parliament. It is May — a May morning that 
every one of these old men will remember to his death. 
The spring rise of the Sycamore has flooded the lowlands. 
The odour of spring is in the air. In the parliament are 
lilacs in a sprinkling pot — a great armful of lilacs, sent by 
Molly Culpepper. The members who are present are 
talking of the way John Barclay has sloughed off his years, 
and Watts is saying : — 

“ Boys will be boys ; I knew him forty years ago when 
he was at least a hundred years older, and twice as wise.” 

“ He hasn’t missed a ball game —either foot-ball or base¬ 
ball— for nearly two }^ears now,” ventures Fernald. “ And 
yell! Say, it’s something terrible.” 

McHurdie turns on the group with his glasses on his 
forehead. “ Don’t you know what’s a-happening to John ? ” 
he asks. “Well, I know. Whoever wrote the Bible was 
a pretty smart man. I’ve found that out in seventy-five 
years — especially the Proverbs, and I’ve been thinking 
some of the Testament.” He smiles. “There’s something 
in it. It says, 4 Except ye come as a little child, ye shall 
in no wise enter the Kingdom.’ That’s it — that’s it. I 
don’t claim to know rightly what the kingdom may be r 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


431 


but John’s entering it. And I’ll say this : John’s been a 
long time getting in, but now that he’s there, he’s having 
the de’el of a fine time.” 

And on the very words General Ward comes bursting 
into the room, forgetful of his years, with tragedy in his 
face. The bustle and clatter of that morning in the town 
have passed over the men in the parliament. They have 
not heard the shouts of voices in the street, nor the sound 
of footsteps running towards the river. But even their 
dim eyes see the horror in the general’s face as he gasps 
for breath. 

“ Boys, boys,” he exclaims. “ My God, boys, haven’t you 
heard — haven’t you heard ? ” And as their old lips are 
slow to answer, he cries out, “John’s dead — John Bar¬ 
clay’s drowned — drowned — gave his life trying to save 
Trixie Lee out there on a tree caught in the dam.” 

The news is so sudden, so stunning, that the old men 
sit there for a moment, staring wide-eyed at the general. 
McHurdie is the first to find his voice. 

u How did it happen ? ” he says. 

“ I don’t know — no one seems to know exactly,” replies 
the general. And then in broken phrases he gives them 
the confused report that he has gathered: how some one 
had found Trixie Lee clinging to a tree caught in the cur¬ 
rent of the swollen river just above the dam, and calling 
for help, frantic with fear; how a crowd gathered, as 
crowds gather, and the outcry brought John Barclay run¬ 
ning from his house near by; how he arrived to find men 
discussing ways of reaching the woman in the swift cur¬ 
rent, while her grip was loosening and her cries were 
becoming fainter. Then the old spirit in John Barclay, 
that had saved the county-seat for Sycamore Ridge, came 
out for the last time. His skiff was tied to a tree on the 
bank close at hand. A boy was sent running to the 
nearest house for a clothes-line. When he returned, John 
was in the skiff, with the oars in hand. He passed an 
end of the line to the men, and without a word in 
answer to their protests, began to pull out against the 
current. It was too strong for him, and was sweeping 


432 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


him past the woman, when he stood up, measured the dis¬ 
tance with his eye, and threw the line so it fell squarely 
across her shoulders. Some one said that as the skiff shot 
over the dam, John, still standing up, had a smile on his 
face, and that he waved his hand to the crowd with a 
touch of his old bravado. 

The general paused before going on with the story. 

“ They sent me to tell his mother — the woman who 
had borne him, suckled him, reared him, lost him, and 
found him again.” 

“And what did she say?” asked Watts, as the general 
hesitated. 

The general moistened his lips and went on. “ She 
stood staring at me for one dreadful minute, and then she 
asked, ‘How did he die, Philemon?’ ‘He died saving a 
woman from drowning,’ I told her. ‘ Did he save her ? ’ 
— that was what she asked, still standing stiff and motion¬ 
less. ‘ Yes,’ I said. ‘She was only Trixie Lee—a bad 
woman — a bad woman, Mrs. Barclay.’ And Mary Bar¬ 
clay lifted her long, gaunt arms halfway above her head 
and cried: ‘ Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming 
of the Lord. I must have an hour with God now, Phile¬ 
mon,’ she said over her shoulder as she left me; ‘don’t let 
them bother me.’ Then she walked unbent and unshaken 
up the stairs.” 

So John Barclay, who tried for four years and more to 
live by his faith, was given the opportunity to die for it, 
and went to his duty with a glad heart. 

We will give our cinematograph one more whirl. A 
day, a week, a month, have gone, and we may glimpse the 
parliament for the last time. Watts McHurdie is reading 
aloud, slowly and rather painfully, a news item from the 
Banner. Two vacant chairs are formally backed to the 
wall, and in a third sits General Ward. At the end of a 
column-long article Watts drones out : — 

“ And there was considerable adverse comment in the 
city over the fact that the deceased was sent here for 
burial from the National Soldiers’ Home at Leavenworth, 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


433 


in a shabby, faded blue army uniform of most ancient 
vintage. Surely this great government can afford better 
shrouds than that for its soldier dead.” 

Watts lays down the paper and wipes his spectacles, and 
finally he says: — 

“ And Neal wrote that ? ” 

“And Neal wrote that,” replies the general. 

“And was born and bred in the Ridge,” complains 
McHurdie. 

“ Born and bred in the Ridge,” responds the general. 

Watts puts on his glasses and fumbles for some piece of 
his work on the bench. Then he shakes his head sadly 
and says, after drawing a deep breath, “Well, it’s a new 
generation, General, a new generation.” 

There follows a silence, during which Watts works on 
mending some bit of harness, and the general reads the 
evening paper. The late afternoon sun is slanting into 
the shop. At length the general speaks. 

“ Yes,” he says, “ but it’s a fine town after all. It was 
worth doing. I wake up early these days, and often of a 
fine spring morning I go out to call on the people on the 
Hill.” 

McHurdie nods his comprehension. 

“Yes,” continues the general, “ and I tell them all 
about the new improvements There are more of us out 
on the Hill now than in town, Watts; I spent some time 
with David Frye and Henry Schnitzler and Jim Lord Lee 
this morning, and called on General Hendricks for a little 
while.” 

“ Did you find him sociable ? ” asks the poet, grinning 
up from his bench. 

“ Oh, so-so — about as usual,” answers the general. 

“He was always a proud one,” comments Watts. 
“ Will Henry Schnitzler be stiff-necked about his monu¬ 
ment there by the gate ? ” asks the little Scotchman. 

“Inordinately, Watts, inordinately! The pride of that 
man is something terrible.” 

The two old men chuckle at the foolery of the moment. 
The general folds away the evening paper and rises to go. 


434 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


44 Watts,” he says, 44 1 have lived seventy-eight years to 
find out just one thing.” 

44 And what will that be? ” asks the harness maker. 

44 This,” beams the old man, as he puts his spectacle case 
in his black silk coat; 44 that the more we give in this 
world, the more we take from it; and the more we keep 
for ourselves, the less we take.” And smiling at his para¬ 
dox, he goes through the shop into the sunset. 

The air is vocal with the home-bound traffic of the day. 
Cars are crowded ; delivery wagons rattle home ; buggies 
clatter by on the pavements; one hears the whisper of a 
thousand feet treading the hot, crowded street. But Watts 
works on. So let us go in to bid him a formal good-by. 
The tinkling door-bell will bring out a bent little old man, 
with grimy fingers, who will put up his glasses to peer at 
our faces, and who will pause a moment to try to recollect 
us. He will talk about John Barclay. 

“Yes, yes, I knew him well,” says McHurdie ; 44 there 
by the door hangs a whip he made as a bo}^. We used to 
play on that accordion in the case there. 01), yes, yes, 
he was well thought of ; we are a neighbourly people — 
maybe too much so. Yes, }^es, he died a brave death, and 
the papers seemed to think his act of sacrifice showed the 
world a real man — and he was that, — he was surely that, 
was John; yes, he was a real man. You ask about his 
funeral? It was a fine one—a grand funeral—every 
hack in town out — every high-stepping horse out; and 
the flowers — from all over the world they came — the 
flowers were most beautiful. But there are funerals and 
funerals. There was Martin Culpepper’s — not so many 
hacks, not so many high-stepping horses, but the old bug¬ 
gies, and the farm wagons, and the little nigger carts —= 
and man, man alive, the tears, the tears I ” 


NOTES 


(The numerals refer to page and line.) 

1:11. Verisimilitude. Appearance of truth. The boys needed 
nothing to make their hickory sticks seem like real horses. 

4 : 39. Draws. Natural ravines. 

11 : 27. Harper's Weekly . This paper was almost as popular dur¬ 
ing the Civil War period as was the New York Tribune. 

11 : 28. Underground Railway. For more than fifty years before 
the Civil War there was an ever increasing number of slaves who fled 
from their masters into the free states. Their chance for evading 
capture would have been very slight but for aid given by the people 
who lived along their route. The work of helping the fugitives was 
well organized and carried on with greatest secrecy. In garrets, cellars, 
caves, or haymows the runaways were hidden during the day and at 
night sent on their way to the next place of refuge or station. This 
system of helping slaves was called the Underground Railway. (See 
Elson : History of the United States, pages 553 to 555.) 

19 : 33. Entreat me not to leave thee. See Ruth, i: 16. When the 
widowed Naomi tried to persuade her daughter-in-law not to return 
home with her, Ruth, with great constancy, answered her with these 
words. 

23 : 12. Roached hair. Hair brushed upward from the forehead. 

24 : 30. Lethe. A river of forgetfulness in Hades. 

34 : 1. Satyrs. Mythological deities or demigods represented as 
having human heads and bodies and limbs of horses or goats. 

36 :2. Daguerreotype. An early variety of photograph invented 
by Daguerre, who was put into an asylum for saying he could transfer 
the likeness of human beings to a “ tin plate.” 

37 : 7. Vox populi. A Latin phrase meaning the voice of the people. 

60 : 32. Pierian spring. The source or fount of knowledge. 

67 : 23. Moloch. A heathen deity whose worship demanded human 
sacrifice. 

76 : 2. Palaver. Beguiling talk or flattery. 

77:11. Empyrean. The uppermost Paradise; the heavens. 

82 : 37. Fice. A contemptuous term meaning little dog. 

84 :28. New Orleans black strap. A mixture of rum and molasses 
used in cooking. 

97 : 22, 24. What is truth? Read John, xviii : 38. 

435 


436 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


102 :39. Whatnot. A piece of furniture having open shelves for 
bric-a-brac. 

108 : 11. Dulcinea. A sweetheart. 

114 : 14. Tumble weeds. In the western United States any plant 
which habitually breaks away from its roots in autumn and is driven 
by the wind over the prairies. The most common tumble weeds are 
bugseed and winged pigweed. 

117 : 1. Croesus. A Lydian king famous for his vast wealth. 

117 :4. Thucydides. A Greek historian who wrote with great 
accuracy. 

132 : 37. Exigencies. Needs; demands. 

133 : 3. Gargoyle. A grotesque water spout, usually projecting from 
the roof gutter of a building. 

133 : 10. Plague of Grasshoppers. The great plague of grasshoppers 
began in 1874 and lasted three years. It caused widespread ruin 
throughout the whole region between the Mississippi River and the 
Rocky Mountains. 

139 : 27. Rapscallion. A good-for-nothing fellow; a rascal. 

140 :29. Nankeen. A brownish yellow cloth of firm texture and 
great durability. 

155 :8. Lemech, Adah, Zillah. Read Genesis, iv : 19 to 24. Since 
Adah and Zillah were Lemech’s wives, it was natural that he should 
boast of his skill to them. 

160 : 29. What profiteth a man. Read Mark, vii : 36. 

170 : 10. The silver cord . . . the old pitcher went to the fountain. 

Read Ecclesiastes, xii : 6. 

170 : 29. The wheel of the cistern. Read Ecclesiastes, xii : 6. 

184 : 22. Joss. Idol; master. 

187 : 28. Brahmins. Hindus of the highest caste. 

191 : 35. Charivari. A mock serenade. 

196 : 7. Homesteads. In 1862 President Lincoln signed a law pro¬ 
viding that ex-Union veterans or their heirs might become the possessors 
of homesteads of 80 or 160 acres of unreserved public lands one year 
after occupation and cultivation. 

201 : 22. Good Templars. A temperance society organized in 1857. 

202 : 22. Abt Vogler. A poem by Robert Browning. 

214 :3. The uprising in 1900. in June, 1900, Peking was reduced 
to a state of siege by the Boxers. These members of a Chinese secret 
society, which aims at the expulsion of foreigners, were defeated by the 
allied pow r ers just in time to save the inmates of the legations. 

225 : 18. Mummers. Maskers; merrymakers. 

246 : 2. Delilah and Samson. Read Judges, xvi : 4 to 31. 

249 : 17. Diapason. The entire compass of tones. 

273 : 31. Well hardly ever. A quotation from Gilbert and Sullivan’s 
opera, Pinafore. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


437 


277 : 29. And Samson wist not. Read Judges , xvi : 20. 

309 :12. Monsieur Beaucaire. A novel by Booth Tarkington. 

392 : 24. Sisyphus. A Corinthian king who, in the lower world, was 
condemned to roll to the top of a hill a great stone which continually 
fell back again. 

QUESTIONS 

General Questions 

1. What is the general idea or theme underlying this story ? 

2. In what way was John Barclay the product of his environment? 

3. What can you say of the historical setting of the story? What 
of its geographical setting ? In what way was Sycamore Ridge like 
El Dorado as described by Mr. White in his account of The Man Who 
Wrote This Book, page xii? 

4. How was John Barclay caught in the whirlpool of conflict be¬ 
tween the ideas of the old nineteenth century and the new aspirations 
of the twentieth? 

5. By what series of events was the soul of Barclay purified ? 

6. What incidents in the story prove that Molly Culpepper was a 
brave, strong woman, heartbroken but never hopeless? 

7. How did Molly typify the spirit of her country in its reconstruc¬ 
tion days after the Civil War? 

8. What incidents prove that Barclay was ruthless instead of strong, 
greedy instead of shrewd ? 

9. What were the dominant traits of character in the following 
persons : John Barclay, Bob Hendricks, Ellen Culpepper, Molly, 
Lige Bemis, Lycurgus Mason, Watts McHurdie? 

10. How are the minor characters in this story interesting in them¬ 
selves? Prove that they do or do not serve merely as background. 

Book I. Chapter I to VI 

11. How was a lad of sixteen caught in a war death trap and 
wounded ? What was the effect of this experience upon the boy’s later 
life? 

12. Why was Sycamore Ridge called Watts McHurdie’s town? 

13. Where and why was John’s father killed? 

14. What events of the battle of Sycamore Ridge seemed important 
to little John? 

15. What incident closed the door of John’s childhood and made 
him a boy ? 

16. What was the effect upon Mrs. Barclay of the note her son left 
when he went to war ? 

17. When and why did the “ will of the people ” prevail in the army ? 


438 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


18. What inspired Watts to write the song that made him famous? 

19. What traits of character made it possible for little John always 
to have his own way ? 

20. What was the effect of the war upon the increase of population 
in Sycamore Ridge ? 

21. Who were the officers and what was the purpose of the “ Spring 
Chickens ” club? 

22. What advice did General Ward give John when the latter left 
Sycamore for college ? 

23. How did John work his way through college ? Cite one instance 
to prove that even in college days his Yankee blood was beginning to 
show. What effect did poverty have upon his career in college? 

24. What was the effect upon Barclay of Ellen’s death ? 

25. What was the significance of the fact that Barclay was the first 
depositor in the new bank ? 

26. Which of the two men, Barclay or Bob Hendricks, had the greater 
ability? What are the reasons for your opinion? 

Chapters VI to X 

27. What were the causes that led to the political advancement of 
Lige Bemis? 

28. What were the characteristics of Watts McHurdie that made him 
so much beloved in the community ? 

29. Why did Jane Mason set fire to a haystack? 

30. What event marked John’s first step into the field of state 
politics ? 

31. In what way did the manner in which Lycurgus Mason gave 
consent for Jane’s wedding indicate that he was or was not a woman 
tamer? Did the story he told about it years later in the harness shop 
square with the facts ? 

32. Why did the panic of ’73 seem of greater importance to the 
people of the Ridge than the drouth of ’60 or the Civil War? 

33. What was the Golden Belt Wheat Company and why was it 
organized ? 

34. What were the physical peculiarities of John and in what way 
did thev affect his career? 

35. What traits of his character are revealed by his treatment of 
Bob Hendricks, General Hendricks, Jeanette, and Neal Ward? 

36. What is the dramatic purpose of Barclay’s letter to Bob Hen¬ 
dricks announcing the birth of Beatrix Lee ? 

37. What sacrifice was made by the Wards in order that they might 
buy flower seeds and bulbs ? 

38. By what lesson was Barclay taught that pride goeth before 
destruction ? 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


439 


Chapters XI to XVI; End of Book I 

39. What were the effects upon Barclay and the Golden Wheat 
Company of the plague of grasshoppers ? 

40. When and why did Martin Culpepper pass a subscription for 
Haskins ? 

41. What was there about the intrigue with Brownwell which re¬ 
volted Barclay ? 

42. What pressure was brought to bear so that Molly was forced 
to sell herself for the “ larger good ” ? 

43. What was the occasion of Watts McHurdie’s song of triumph and 
what was its effect upon his neighbors ? 

44. Who arranged for the ten thousand dollar loan from Brownwell 
to Colonel Culpepper and why ? 

45. If Molly had refused Brownwell and the note had remained 
unsigned, what would have happened to the Hendricks family and to 
the Culpeppers? 

46. How did General Hendricks’s forged note help Barclay to win 
another game with destiny ? 

47. By what means did John prevent a run on the Exchange National 
Bank following General Hendricks’s death ? 

48. How did Bob prove that Molly had not jilted him wantonly? 

49. When and why did Bob shake Barclay until his teeth rattled ? 

50. Just before Molly’s wedding how did strength come to Bob to 
keep him from depriving the soldiers of their homesteads? 

51. How was Lige Bemis useful to John Barclay in politics? 

52. What was the Economy Rubber Strip? How did it help to 
increase the wealth of an already rich man ? 

53. What was Brownwell’s attitude toward the “ encroachment of 
women ” and what was its effect upon Molly? 

54. Where did the money come from which established Ward Uni¬ 
versity ? 

55. How did Barclay’s speech, given at the laying of the corner 
stone of Ward University, typify his ideals? 

Book II. Chapters XVII to End 

56. What is the dramatic purpose of the interlude between Part I 
and Part II ? 

57. What, to Jeanette, were the important events of her childhood? 

58. What person seemed to little Jeanette a symbol of patriotism? 
What can you say of his personal appearance? 

59. When and why was Lige Bemis thrown out of a political meeting ? 

60. Why did Molly cut off the lilac buds each year before they 
bloomed ? 


440 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


61. Why did Nellie McHurdie become a joiner? What effect did 
this have upon Watts? 

62. When and why did General Grant congratulate McHurdie? 

63. Why did Bob Hendricks give Jake Dolan a “ holy picture from 
the bank”? 

64. By what “ white lie ” did Hendricks prove himself a thoroughbred 
to Colonel Culpepper? 

65. Who saved Trixie Lee from jail and whv couldn’t he afford to do 
it? 

66. In what way was the picture painted by the Russian a portrait 
of Barclay’s ideals? 

67. Why was Colonel Culpepper sent to jail ? How did he get out ? 

68. When and why did Barclay pay back the money he obtained 
from selling Molly into bondage ? 

69. Why did General Ward disapprove of his son’s engagement to 
Jeanette? 

70. What brought about the investigation of the National Provisions 
Company ? 

71. When and why was Neal Ward tempted to become a perjurer 
instead of a patriot ? How did he meet his temptation ? What effect 
had his testimony upon himself, upon Barclay, upon Jeanette? 

72. In what way did Lige Bemis make use of the note he found on 
the station platform and why was he responsible for Adrian Brownwell’s 
departure from Sycamore ? 

73. Why was Bob Hendricks like or unlike Sydney Carton? 

74. Why did Neal write letters to Jeanette which he did not send ? 

75. Which had the greater effect upon Barclay, his indictment or 
the death of Hendricks ? 

76. In what way was Jane Barclay a victim of her husband’s greed? 

77. What did the people in the community think about Barclay’s 
change of heart? What did he do for his town? 

78. What did General Ward tell the men in McHurdie’s harness 
shop about the rescue of Trixie Lee ? 

79. What traits of his own character does the author, William Allen 
White, reveal in this story ? 

SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR THEMES 

1. John Barclay’s First Adventure 

Imagine that you are an Indian brave or squaw in the party 
which found John and returned him to his mother. 

2. The Battle of Sycamore Ridge 

Let John tell the story to his young friend Bob Hendricks. 

3. Good Luck Boys 

Pretend that you are Captain Ward. Write a letter to Mis3 
Lucy telling of the discovery of the two little runaways. 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


441 


4. The Migration of a People 

Imagine that you are an occupant of one of the canvas-covered 
wagons journeying across the Mississippi in search of a home. 
Mention the purpose of your trip, companions, and incidents of 
the long, hot days. 

5. Why Molly Cut Off the Lilac Buds before They Bloomed 

6. How the Founding of Ward College Made a Dream Come True 

7. John Barclay in Relation to His Environment and in Relation to 

Himself 

8. The Story of Molly Culpepper and Its Heartbreak 

9. Mineola vs. Sycamore Ridge 

Imagine that you are a young person living in Mineola. Tell 
of the struggle which resulted in the death of your town. 

10. John Barclay’s Wedding 

Pretend that you were a guest at the festivities. Write a letter 
to your mother telling her of the events of the day. 

11. A Radiant Soul 

A description of Molly Culpepper. 

12. Character Sketch of John Barclay as a Collegian 

13. The Age in Which Barclay Lived 

14. A Certain Rich Man’s Fate 

15. The Influence of Barclay’s Mother 

16. Barclay’s Repentance 

17. The Supreme Sacrifice 

18. Bob Hendricks’ Death Was Far More Tragic than John Barclay’s 

19. An Effulgent Newspaper 

Imagine that you are a subscriber to the Banner. Discuss a 
copy with one of your neighbors. 

20. The Wheat King of the Sycamore Valley 

Explain the steps by which John gained control of the wheat of 
the valley. 

21. An Afternoon in Watts McHurdie’s Harness Shop 

22. A Fine Fellow 

Prove that Robert Hendricks and not John Barclay is the hero 
of this story. 

23. How Trixie Lee Was Saved 

Pretend that you are General Ward. Tell the news to the group 
in the harness shop. 

24. How a Memory Influenced a Life 

Prove that the memory of Ellen Culpepper played a vital part in 
the life of John Barclay. 

25. “ Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory ” 

Let Mary Barclay tell her story of John’s death to an old friend. 

26. A Victim of Circumstances 

Prove that John Barclay, caught in the whirlpool of conflict 


A CERTAIN RICH MAN 


442 


between the ideas of the old century and the new aspirations 
of the twentieth, was much more of a hero than a villain. 

27. One of the Strong Women 

Prove that Molly Culpepper was a brave, strong woman, heart¬ 
broken but never hopeless. 

28. Jeanette Barclay’s Girlhood 

29. A Knight-errant 

Use incidents in the life of Colonel Martin Culpepper to prove 
that he was a follower of the “ large white plumes.” 

30. A Punctilious Gentleman 

Description of Adrian Pericles Brownwell. 

31. A Morning to be Remembered 

Imagine that you were one of the crowd on the station platform 
the morning Watts McHurdie started for the National Encamp¬ 
ment. Describe the events to a stranger and mention the inter¬ 
view between Hendricks and Logan. 

32. A New Century Party 

Write a letter to your cousin describing the New Year’s party 
given by Jeanette to celebrate the dawning year and the birth 
of the century. 

33. Silas Marner and John Barclav 

«/ 

Show how both Silas and John were led from the path of destruc¬ 
tion by the hand of a little child. 

34. A Comparison and Contrast of Bob Hendricks and Sidney Carton 

Note : Topics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 17, 23, 25, and 28 will be found 
useful as subjects for narrative treatment; numbers 11, 12, 21, 30, 31, 
and 32 for description; 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 33, and 34 for ex¬ 
position ; and 18, 22, 24, 26, 27, and 29 for argumentation. 





















































































































































































































MAR ? 1923 

























































